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JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

His Life, Genius, and Writings 



W.^SLOANE KENNEDY 

Author of a " Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Etc. 

REVISED AND ENLARGED 



INTRODUCTION BT REV. S. F. SMITH, DM. 

Author of Hj'^mn " America" 



Such music as the woods and streams 
Sang in his ear, he sang aloud 

The Tent on the Beach 

For all his quiet life flowed on, 

As meadow streamlets flow, 
Where fresher green reveals alo 

The noiseless ways they go 

The Friend' s Burial 




CHICAGO NEW YORK 
THE WERNER COMPANY 






^e 






COPYRIGHT 1892 

By D. LOTHROP COMPANY 



COPYRIGHT 1895 

By the WERNER COMPANY 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



INTRODUCTION. 



Who does not admire and love John Greenleaf Whit- 
tier ? And who does not delight to do him honor ? He 
was a man raised up by Providence to meet an exigency 
in human history, and an exigency in the experiences 
of the United States. And he met the exigency with 
distinguished success. He was a true exponent of New 
England life and the New England spirit. He drew his 
inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the 
necessities of the times, from the demands of human 
rights, from the love of God and of man. He was a 
unique man. We knew not his like before him. We 
shall see no other like him after him. He was the 
product of his age ; and the age in which he lived 
belonged to him, and he to and In it. He was a unique 
literary man. He was so meek and retiring ; he was 
so keenly sensitive to the wrongs done by man to man ; 
he was so devoid of self-seeking ; so pure and exalted 
in motive, and so sturdy a defender of the rights of 
the oppressed ; he was so full of trust in God that we 
seem never to have seen his equal among men. His 
beautiful gentleness of character and his inflexible and 
fearless advocacy of the cause of righteousness — even 
when such advocacy involved persecution and personal 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

harm and loss, a rare combination of qualities — remind 
us. of the sentiment of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 

" The gentle are the strong." 

If ever in modern days the character of the apostle 
John has been reproduced among men it was in John 
G. Whittier. See with what sweetness and meekness 
the shy and loving Quaker moved through the ranks 
of society in times of peace and prosperity, and with 
what an adamantine boldness and bravery he stood 
up before the mob in Philadelphia when his types and 
manuscripts were scattered, his printing office burned 
and himself threatened with personal violence by the 
foes of human equality and freedom. Did he quail 
before the storm ? Not he. Did he abandon his prin- 
ciples and retire from the arena ? Oh, no ; no more 
than did the apostle John — the apostle of love — 
forsake his Christian faith when the persecutors im- 
mersed him in boiling oil and exiled him to a desert 
island in the ^gean Sea. 

The poetry of Mr. Whittier is a complete autobiog- 
raphy. It is a reflection, as in a polished mirror, of 
himself. We miss only the accidents of dates and 
places, which are of merely external importance ; but 
we find in his works, amply displayed, the portraiture 
of the man ; even as the architect records himself and 
his thoughts in his plans, and builds his own soul into 
his edifices. Read the poetry of Mr. Whittier, and 
you have no need to ask what kind of man produced 
it. Behold the portrait : a thorough New England man, 
a son of its soil and a legitimate product of its institu- 
tions ; a fruit of the simple education which was open 
to the people in the times of his youth and manhood ; 



INTRODUCTION. J 

a. philanthropist, loving all righteousness and all men, 
and scorning all oppression, injustice and iniquity ; a 
stern advocate of human freedom, prepared to fight for 
it even "to the bitter end;" a bachelor, but having 
always a sweet and tender side for women ; petted by 
society, but never tempted to swerve from the straight 
line of his principles ; holding the faith of his fathers 
as a birthright and the result of his honest convictions, 
but with sympathies as broad as the universe and an 
appreciation of the privilege of private judgment on 
religious matters as the right and duty of all men ; 
animated by a patriotism which took in his whole coun- 
try, but a yearning for his own New England, its 
people, its scenery, its institutions and its honor ; 
warmly attached to the friends whom he met along the 
pilgrimage of this life, but preserving to the last the 
memory and the love of the survivors whom he knew 
in his school days in the Haverhill Academy ; living 
very much apart from his fellowmen, as he did in his 
latter days, on account of the increasing infirmities of 
his age, and absorbed in the world of his own thoughts, 
yet ever most affable, and as accessible as a most 
warm-hearted and cordial associate ; every inch a man, 
as in stature, so also in soul, but exhibiting also the 
simplicity and the loving and confiding spirit of a child 
(" of such is the kingdom of heaven ") ; conscious 
of his human weakness and dependence on a higher 
Power, as he approached the goal of life, but relying 
on that higher Power with a sublime courage and a 
firm faith. How the man stands forth, like an orator 
on the stage, in the presence of throngs of admiring 
and reverent spectators ! Unconsciously he sets forth 
in his works, whether they be prose or poetry, an 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

example of the beauty of righteousness, the charm 
of philanthropy, the power and attractiveness of the 
broadest charity, the fervor of patriotism and the con- 
trolling force of love. The century which is about 
to close has been honored and made better, as well as 
gladder, by his presence in it. He- has enriched its lit- 
erature. He has elevated its ethics. He has breathed 
a divine life into its inspirations. He has warmed its 
heart. 

Mr. Whittier, like another Wordsworth, glorifies the 
scenes of common life, and hallows the landscapes of 
his New England homes. His verses speak in the 
dialect of the people, and deal with themes with which 
they are familiar. He lifts toil above its drudgery, 
and sanctifies, as with a sacred glow, the things with 
which men in common spheres chiefly have to do. He 
admired nature as he saw in it the landscapes which 
surrounded his several homes, the rolling green hills 
of Haverhill and Bradford, the mighty trees of Oak 
Knoll, the flowing stream and graceful curves of the 
Merrimack ; the sober and quiet graces of Amesbury ; 
and with his pen he stamped upon them immortality. 

The sun has set, but no night follows. The singer 
is gone, but his songs remain, and will long be a power 
among men far beyond the places adorned and honored 
by his personal presence. We love his poems which 
on account of their helpfulness the grateful world will 
long continue to read. How little he wrote — did he 
ever write anything — " which, dying, he could wish 
to blot? " and his life was a poem. The seal of Death 
is on his virtues, and the seal of universal approval is 
on his works. 

S. F. Smith. 



CONTENTS. 



Part E — Life. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ancestry . . 9 

The Poet's Titles. Heredity. Spelling of the Name 
Whittier. Whittier Ancestors. Greenleaf Ancestors. The 
Husseys and Batchelders. Portrait of Whittier's Mother. 

II. The Merrimack Valley .... 24 

Description of Essex County, Haverhill, Amesbury, 
Newburyport, Salisbury Beach, and the Isles of Shoals. 
Extracts from the " Supernaturalism of New England." 
The Spirit of the Age. 

III. Boyhood . 36 

Birthplace. Kenoza Lake. Whitman and Whittier. 
The Old Homestead. Members of the Household. Harriet 
Livermore and Lady Hester Stanhope. The Poet's School , 
Days. " My Playmate." EUwood and Burns. Old Strag- 
glers. " Pilgrim's Progress," The Demon Fiddler. 
First Poem. William Lloyd Garrison and the Free Press. 
Haverhill Academy. Robert Dinsmore, the Quaint Farmer- 
Poet of Windham. 

IV. Editor and Author: First Ventures . 83 

Whittier as Editor of the Boston Mafmfacturer, the 
Essex Gazette, and the New England Review. First 
Volume, " Legends of New England." The Poet, J. G.C. 
Brainard. Ballad of "The Black Fox." Whittie?''s 
Views on the Poetical Resources of the New World. 
♦• Moll Pitcher." 



lO CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V. Whittier the Reformer .... 97 

Identifies Himself with the Anti-Slavery Movement. 
Publication of his Brochure, "Justice and Expediency." 
Social Martyrdom. Prudence Crandall and her Battle with 
the Philistinism of Canterbury, Conn. Tailor Woolman 
and Saddler Lundy. Account of the Philadelphia Conven- 
tion for the Formation of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society. Whittier's Account of the Convention. William 
Lloyd Garrison draws up the Famous Declaration of 
Principles. Samuel J. May Mobbed at East HaverhiU. 
Whittier and George Thompson Mobbed at Concord, 
N. H. Story of the Landlord and the Flight by Night. The 
Poet's Account of the Mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison. 
Letters of John Quincy Adams. Harriet Martineau on 
Slavery. Attitude of Whittier toward the Quakers on the 
Slavery Question. 

VI. Amesbury 123 

Removal to Amesbury. Description of the Town and 
of the Poet's Residence. The Study. Whittier Corre- 
sponding Editor of the National Era. Various Works 
Written, including "Stranger in Lowell," " Supernatural- 
ism of New England," " Songs of Labor," " Child-Life," 
" Child-Life in Prose," " Introduction " to Woolman's 
Journal, and "Songs of Three Centuries" (Edited), 
Whittier College Established. 

VII. Later Days ....... 141 

Danvers. Oak Knoll. Summerings of the Poet at the 
Isles of Shoals and the Bearcamp House. The Literary 
World Tribute, and the Whittier Banquet at the Hotel 
Brunswick. The Whittier Club. Various Volumes of 
Poetry Published. 

VIII. Personal . ^(G.*^ 

Whittier's Personal Appearance Described by Frederika 
Bremer, Geo. W. Bungay, David A. Wasson, and others. 
Incident of his Kind-heartedness to a Stranger. Dom 
Pedro 11. and Whittier at Mrs. John T. Sargent's Recep- 
tion. Letter to Mrs. Sargent. Humor. Love of Children. 
Offices of Dignity and Honor. 



CHAPTER 
I. 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

part e. 
Analysis of His Genius and Writings. 

PAGE 

The Man . ^^9 

The Moral in Whittier Predominates over the Esthetic. 
Love of Freedom the Central Element of his Character. 
Freedom, Democracy, and Quakerism, links in one Chain. 
Quakerism Described; Freedom and the Inner Light; 
Quakerism is Pure Democracy or Christianity, and Pure 
Individualism, or Philosophical Idealism; it Resembles 
Transcendentalism; the Details of the Quaker Religion 
Considered; Quotations from William Penn, Mary Brook, 
and A. M. Powell; Objections to Quakerism; Beautiful 
Lives of the Quakers; Whittier's Attitude Toward the 
Religion of his Fathers. His Religious Development, 
Doubt, and Trust. Patriotism. Has Blood Militant in his 
Veins. A Representative American Poet. Summing Up. 

II. The Artist ^9^ 

Little or no Technique. More Fancy than Imagination. 
The Artistic Quality of his Mind a Fusion of that of Words- 
worth and Byron. His Bookish Lore. The Beauty and Mel- 
ody of his Finest Ballads. His Strength and Nervous 
Energy. Culmination of his Genius. His Three Crazes, 
Letters to the Nation, and to the American Anti-Slavery 
Society. Illustrations of the Predominance of the Moral in 
his Nature. Taine Quoted. Pope-Night. His Over-religi- 
ousness. Love of Consecutive Rhymes. Minor Manner- 
isms. Originality. 

IIL Poems Seriatim .,...• 217 

Mr. David A. Wasson's Classification of Epochs in the 
Poet's Development. The Author's Classification. Four 
Periods: ist, Introductory; 2d, Storm and Stress ; 3d, 
Transition ; 4th, Religioxis and Artistic Repose. General 
Review of Earlier Productions. The Indian Poems. 
«« Songs of Labor." The Ballad Decade. "Prophecy of 
Samuel Sewall." John Chadwick on "Skipper Ireson's 
Ride." The "Barbara Frietchie" Controversy. The 
Romance of the " Countess." Winter in Poetry. " Snovir- 
Bound." «- The Tent on the Beach." Various Poems. 



12 CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV. The King's Missive . . . . .254 

Joseph Besse Quoted. Story of the Quaker and the 
King of England. The Debate of Whittier and Dr. Geo. E. 
Ellis of Boston. Humorous Specimen of Quaker Rant 
from Mather's Magnolia. Terrible Sufferings of the 
Quakers. 

V. Poems by Groups ., .... 272 

The Anti-Slavery Poems Reviewed. Poems Inspired 
by the Civil War. Hymns. Children's Poems: "Red 
Riding-Hood," " The Robin," etc. Oriental Poems and 
Paraphrases. 

VI. Prose Writings 279 

Much of his Prose of Historical or Sectarian Interest 
Only. Charming Nature-and Folk-Studies and Sketches. 
«' Margaret Smith's Journal." " Old Portraits and Modern 
Sketches." " Literary Recreations and Miscellanies." 
Specimens of Whittier's Prose. 



Twilight and Evening Bell. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Twilight and Evening Bell. ... 301 

Whittier's death at Hampton Falls, N. H. Celebration 
of his birthdays. Funeral and memorial services. Personal 
reminiscences. Fac-simile of letter to Oliver Wendell Homes. 



APPENDIX. 
Bibliography ...» .... 375 



Part I. 

LIFE. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIEK 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY. 

The Hermit of Amesbury, the Wood- 
thrush of Essex, the Martial Quaker, the 
Poet of Freedom, the Poet of the Moral 
Sentiment, — such are some of the titles 
bestowed upon Whittier by his admirers. 
Let us call him the Preacher-Poet, for he has 
written scarcely a poem or an essay that does 
not breathe a moral sentiment or a religious 
aspiration. What effect this predetermina- 
tion of character has had upon his artistic 
development shall be discussed in another 
place. 

The present chapter — which may be 
called the propylaeum or vestibule of the 
biographical structure that follows — will 
deal with the poet's ancestry, and the 
information afforded by it, and the two chap- 
ters that succeed will afford unmistakable 

15 



1 6 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

evidence of the truth that a poet, no less than 
a solar system or a loaf of bread, is the logi- 
cal resultant of a line of antecedent forces 
and circumstances. The fine but infrangible 
threads of our destiny are spun and woven 
out of atom-fibres indelibly stamped with 
the previous owners' names. Their char- 
acters immingle in our own, — the affluence 
or the indigence of their intellects, the sugar 
or the nitre of their wit, the shifting sand or 
the unwedgeable iron of their moral natures. 

The name Whittier is spelled in thirty- 
tv/o different ways in the old records : a list 
of these different spellings is given in 
Daniel Bodwell Whittier's genealogy 'of 
the family. The common ancestor of the 
Whittiers is Thomas Whittier, who in, the 
year 1638 came from Southampton, England, 
to New England, in the ship " Confidence," 
of London, John Dobson, master. It is 
recorded of Thomas Whittier, says his de- 
scendant, the poet, in a half facetious way, 
that the only noteworthy circumstance con- 
nected with his coming was that he brought 
with him a hive of bees. He was born in 
1620. His mother was probably a sister of 



ANCESTRY. 1 7 

John and Henry Rolfe, with the former of 
whom he came to America. His name at 
that time was spelled "Whittle." He mar- 
ried Ruth Green, and lived at first in Salis- 
bury, Mass. He seems afterward to have 
lived in Newbury. In 1650 he removed to 
Haverhill, where he was admitted freeman, 
May 23, 1666. 

It was customary in those days, says 
the historian of Haverhill, for the nearest 
neighbors to sleep in the garrisons at night, 
but Thomas Whittier refused to take shel- 
ter there with his family. " Relying upon 
the weapons of his faith, he left his own 
house unguarded, and unprotected with 
palisades, and carried with him no weapons 
of war. The Indians frequently visited him, 
and the family often heard them, in the still- 
ness of the evening, whispering beneath the 
windows, and sometimes saw them peep in 
upon the little group of practical ^non-resist- 
ants.' Friend Whittier always treated them 
civilly and hospitably, and they ever retired 
without molesting him."^ Thomas Whittier 

* "The History of Haverhill, Mass. ; from its first settle- 
ment in 1640 to the year i860. Bv George Wingate Chase, 
Haverhill. Published by the author, 1861." 

2 



1 8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

died in Haverhill, November 28, 1696. His 
autograph appears in the probate records of 
Salem, Mass., as witness to a v^^ill of Samuel 
Gild. His v^idow died in July, 17 10, and 
her eldest son John w^as appointed adminis- 
trator of her estate. Thomas had ten chil- 
dren, of whom John became the ancestor of 
the most numerous branch of the Whittiers. 
Joseph, the brother of John, became the 
head of another branch of the family, and is 
the great-grandfather of our poet. Joseph 
married Mary, daughter of Joseph Peasley, 
of Haverhill, by whom he had nine children, 
among them Joseph, 2d, the grandfather of 
the poet. Joseph, 2d, married Sarah Green- 
leaf of Newbury, by whom he had eleven 
children. The tenth child, John (the father 
of the poet), married Abigail Hussey, who 
was a daughter of Joseph Hussey, of Somers- 
worth, — now Rollinsford, — N. H., a town 
on the Piscataqua River, which forms the 
southern part of the boundary line between 
New Hampshire and Maine. The mother 
of Abigail Hussey (the poet's mother) was 
Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me. John Whit- 
tier, the father of the poet, died in Haverhill, 
June 30, 1830. His children were four in 



ANCESTRY. 1 9 

number : (i) Mary, born September 3, 
1806, married Jacob Caldwell, of Haverhill, 
and died January 7, i860; (2) John Green= 
leaf, the poet, born December 17, 1807, in 
Haverhill; (3) Matthew Franklin, born July 
18, 18 1 2, married Jane E. Vaughan; (4) 
Elizabeth Hussey, born December 7, 1815, 
died September 3, 1864. From this state- 
ment it will be seen that Matthew is the 
only surviving member of the family, be- 
sides the poet himself Matthew resides in 
Boston, and has sons, daughters, and grand- 
children."^ 

The name Whittier constantly appears 
in important documents signed by the chief 
citizens of Haverhill. The family was evi- 
dently respected and honored by the com- 
munity. In 1669 a Whittier was chosen 
town-constable. It is recorded that in 171 1 
Thomas Whittier — probably a son of 
Thomas (ist) — was one of a militia com- 
pany provided with snow-shoes in order the 

* The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier 
genealogy. But the .author finds that there are a few slight 
discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions 
on the family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say 
that John Whittier died " nth of 6rr_o., 1S31," and that Mary 
died " 1st mo. 7, 1861." 



20 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

better to repel an anticipated attack of the 
Indians. J3ut, in spite of civil honors, it is 
well known that, down to comparatively 
recent times, the family suffered considerable 
social persecution and slight on account of 
their religious belief. For example, when 
the citizens built a new meeting-house, in 
1699, they peremptorily refused to allow the 
Quakers to worship in it, although petitioned 
to do so by Joseph Peasley and others, and 
although they were taxed for its support. It 
was not until 1774 ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ passed by 
the State exempting dissenters from taxa- 
tion for the support of what we may call 
the State religion. It is important to bear 
this in mind, if we would know all the in- 
fluences that went to form the character of 
the poet. 

The poet's paternal grandmother was 
Sarah Greenleaf, of Newbury. The gene- 
alogist of the Greenleafs says : " From all 
that can be gathered it is believed that the 
ancestors of the Greenleaf family were 
Huguenots, who left France, on account of 
their religious principles some time in the 
course of the sixteenth century, and settled 
in England. The name was probably trans- 



ANCESTRY. 21 

iated from the French Feuillevert.^ Ed- 
mund Greenleaf, the ancestor of the Ameri- 
can Greenleafs, was born in the parish of 
Brixham, and county of Devonshire, near 
Torbay, in England, about the year 1600." 
He came to Newbury, Mass., in 1635. ^^e 
was by trade a silk-dyer. Respecting the 
family coat-of-arms the genealogist gives, 
on page 116, the following interesting 
statement: — 

"The Hon. William Greenleaf, once of 
Boston, and then of New Bedford, being in 
London about the year 1760, obtained from 
an office of heraldry a device, said to be 
the arms of the family, which he had 
painted, and the painting is now in the pos- 
session of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, 
of Roxbury, Mass. The field is white (ar- 
gent), bearing a chevron between three 
leaves (vert). The crest is a dove stand- 
ing on a wreath of green and white, hold- 
ing in its mouth three green leaves. The 
helmet is that of a warrior (visor down) ; a 
garter below, but no motto," 

* Whittier has thus alluded to this surmise : — 
■" The name the Gallic exile bore, 

St. Malo ! from thy ancient mart, 
Became upon our Western shore 
Greenleaf for Feuillevert." 



2 2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

What more appropriate emblazonment 
for the escutcheon of our Martial Quaker 
poet than a warrior's helmet, and a dove 
holding in its mouth the emblem of 
peace! 

Jonathan Greenleaf, born in Newbury, in 
1723, is described as possessing a remark- 
ably kind and conciliatory disposition. 
"Even the tones of his voice were gentle 
and persuasive, and he was very frequently 
resorted to as a peacemaker between con- 
tending parties. His dress was remarkably 
uniform, usually in his later years being 
deep blue or drab. He seldom walked fast, 
his gait being a measured and moderate 
step. His manners were plain, unassuming, 
but very polite. He was very religious, and 
a strict Calvinist. Nothing but absolute 
necessity kept him from public worship on 
the Sabbath, and he was scarce ever known 
to omit regular morning and evening 
worship." 

Of Professor Simon Greenleaf, the Har- 
vard Law Professor (183 3- 1845), ^^ family 
genealogist says: "For the last thirty years 
of his life he was one of the most spiritu- 
ally-minded of men, evidently intent on 



ANCESTRY, 23 

walking humbly with God, and doing good 
to the bodies and souls of his fellow-men; 
scarce ever writing a letter of friendship 
even, without breathing in it a prayer, or 
delivering in it some good message." Pro- 
fessor Greenleaf published some dozen 
works, both legal and religious. It is a 
curious fact that his son James married 
Mary Longfellow, a sister of the Cambridge 
poet, thus making Whittier and Longfellow 
distant kinsmen."^ 

Another English Greenleaf — contempo- 
rary with Edmund, being a silk-dyer as 
well as he, and in all probability a near 
kinsman — was a lieutenant under Oliver 
Cromwell, and served also under Richard 
Cromwell, and was in the army of the Pro- 
tector under General Monk, at the time of 
the restoration of Charles II. 

It is hardl}^ necessary to call the reader's 
attention to the significant fact, elicited by 
the foregoing researches, that, in tracing 
down two hereditary lines of the poet's 



* It maj be added that the ancestral home of the Long- 
fellows is still standing in Bjfield, about five miles distant 
from the Whittier homestead in Haverhill. (See the authors 
Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, p, 15.) 



24 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

paternal ancestors, ^we discover that fot 
many generations those ancestors suffered 
religious persecution for loyalty to their 
religious convictions, and that many of them 
were remarkable for their sensitive piety. 

Turn w^e novv^ to the maternal ancestry 
of Whittier. 

In 1873 the poet wrote to Mr. D. B. 
Whittier, of Boston, as follows: — 

"My mother was a descendant of Chris- 
topher Hussey, of Hampton, N. H., who 
married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Bache- 
lor, the first minister of that town. 

"Daniel Webster traces his ancestry to 
the same pair, so Joshua Coffin informed 
me. Colonel W. B. Greene, of Boston, is 
of the same family."^ 

In the light of the preceding note, the 
following letter of Col. W. B. Greene ex- 
plains itself: — 

"Jamaica Plain, Mass., Sept. 24, 1S73. 
"Mr. D. B. Whittier, Danville, Vt. 

" Dear Sir, — Yours of September 20 
is just received, and I reply to it at once. 

* The name of Daniel Webster's paterna. grandmother 
was Susannah Bachelor, or Batchelder. 



ANCESTRY. 25 

My grandfather, on m}' mother's side, was 
the Rev. William Batchelder, of Haverhill, 
Mass. In the year 1838 I had a conversa- 
tion, on a matter of militar}^ business, v^ith 
the Hon. Daniel Webster; and, to my as- 
tonishment, Mr. Webster treated me as a 
kinsman. My mother aftervv^ards explained 
his conduct by telling me that one of Mr. 
W.'s female ancestors w^as a Batchelder. In 
1838 or 1839, ^^ thereabouts, I met school- 
master [Joshua] Coffin on a Mississippi 
steamboat, near Baton Rouge. The cap- 
tain of the boat told me, confidentially, 
that Coffin was engaged in a dangerous mis- 
sion respecting some slaves, and inquired 
whether my aid and countenance could be 
counted on in favor of Coffin, in case vio- 
lence should be offered him. This he did 
because I was on the boat as a military man, 
and in uniform. When Coffin found he 
could count on me, he came and talked with 
me, and finally told me he had [once] been 
hired b}^ Daniel Webster to go to I-psvjich^ 
and there look up Mr. W.'s ancestry. He 
spoke of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, of New 
Hampshire, and said that Daniel Webster, 
John G. Whittier, and myself were related 



26 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

by Batchelder blood. I did not feel at all 
ashamed of my relatives. In 1841 or 1842 
Mrs, Crosby, of Hallowell, Me., who had 
charge of my grandfather when he was a 
boy, and knew all about the family, told me 
that Daniel Webster was a Batchelder, that 
she had known his father intimately, and 
knew Daniel when he was a boy. At the 
time of my conversation with her, Aunt 
Crosby might have been anywhere from 
seventy-five to eight3^-five years of age. 
When I was a boy, at (say) about the year 
1827 or 1828, 1 used to go often to the house 
of J. G. Whittier's father, a little out of 
the village (now city) of Haverhill, Mass. 
There was a Mrs. Hussey in the family, who 
baked the best squash pies I ever ate, and 
knew how to make the pine floors shine like 
a looking-glass. 

'^This is, I think, all the information, in 
answer to your request, that I am competent 
to §ive you. 

" Yours respectfully, 

"William Batchelder Greene." 

I?(i a note addressed to the New England 
Historical and Genealogical Society, the 



ANCESTRY, 2/ 

poet says: "On my mother's side my 
grandfather was Joseph Hussey, of Som- 
ersworth, N. H.; married Mercy Evans, of 
Berwick, Me." 

Some of the genealogical links connect- 
ing the Husseys of Somersworth with those 
of Hampton have not yet been recovered. 
But this mucn is known of the family,"^ that 
in 1630 Christopher Hussey came from 
Dorking, Surrey, England, to Lynn, Mass. 
He had married, in Holland, Theodate, the 
daughter of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, a 
Puritan minister, who had fled to that coun- 
try to avoid persecution in England. The 
author was told by a local antiquary in 
Hampton, N. H., that there is a tradition in 
the town that Stephen Bachiler would not 
let his daughter marry young Hussey unless 
he embraced the Puritan faith. His love 
was so great that he consented, and came 
with his bride to America, where two 
years later his father-in-law followed him. 
Stephen Bachiler came to Lynn in 1632, 
with six persons, his relatives and friends, 
who had belonged to his church in Holland, 
and with them he established a little inde- 

* See histories of Lynn and Newbui-j, passim. 



28 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

pendent church in Lynn. The progenitive 
faculty of this worthy divine must have 
been highly developed: he was married 
four times, and was dismissed from his 
church at Lynn on account of charges twice 
preferred against him by women of his con- 
pfresration. The recorded dates show that 
both he and his son-in-law, Hussey, came 
to Hampton in the year 1639. The Hamp- 
ton authorities had the previous year made 
Mr. Bachiler and Mr. Hussey each a grant 
of three hundred acres of land, to induce 
them to settle there. When and how the 
Husseys became Quakers is not known to 
the author. But in Savage's Genealogical 
Dictionary, II. 507, it is recorded that as 
early as 1688 a certain John Hussey of 
Hampton was a preacher to the Quakers in 
Newcastle, Del. The mother of the poet 
was a devoted disciple of the Society of 
Friends. That she was a person of deep 
and tender religious nature is evident to 
one looking at the excellent oil-portrait of 
her which hangs in the little parlor at Ames- 
bury. The head is inclined graciously to 
one side, and the face wears that expression 
of ineffable tranquillity which is always a 



ANCESTRY. 29 

witness to generations of Qiiaker ancestry. 
In the picture, her garments are of smooth 
and immaculate drab. The poet once re- 
marked to the writer that one of the reasons 
why his mother removed to Amesbury, in 
1840, was that she might be near the little 
Friends' "Meeting" in that town. 

Thus among the maternal as well as the 
paternal progenitors of our Quaker poet we 
find the religious nature predominant. 



so JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK. 

In the valley of the Merrimack John 
Greenleaf Whittier was born (December 
17, 1807), and in the same region he has 
passed nearly his entire life, first in the town 
of Haverhill, and then in Amesbury, some 
nine miles distant. To strangers, the hilly 
old county of Essex wears a somewhat bleak 
and Scotian look; but it is fertile in poetical 
resources, and the tillers of its glebe are 
passionately attached to its blue hills and 
sunken dales, its silver rivers and wind- 
ing roads, umbrageous towns and thrifty 
homes. Like Burns and Cowper, Whittier 
is distinctively a rustic poet, and he and 
Whitman are the most indigenous and patri- 
otic of our singers. His idyllic poetry 
savors of the soil and is full of local allu- 
sions. It is, therefore, essential to the full 
enjoyment of his writings that one should 



THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK, 3 1 

get, at the outset, as vivid an idea as pos- 
sible both of the Essex landscape and the 
Essex farmer. 

Whittier was born some three miles north- 
east of what is now the thriving little city of 
Haverhill. It was settled in 1640 by twelve 
men from Newbury and Ipswich. Its In- 
dian name was Pentucket, — the appellation 
of a tribe once dwelling on its site, a tribe 
under the jurisdiction of Passaconaway, 
chief of the Pennacooks. The city is built 
partly on the river-terrace of the northern 
shore, and partly on the adjoining hills. It 
is celebrated in colonial history for the heroic 
exploit of Hannah Duston, who, when taken 
captive by a party of twenty savages at the 
time of the Haverhill massacre, killed and 
scalped them all, with the aid of her com- 
panion (also a woman), and returned in 
safety to the settlement. A handsome monu- 
ment has recently been erected to her mem- 
ory in the city square ; it is a granite structure, 
with bronze bas-reliefs, and surmounted b}> 
a bronze statue of the heroine. In the pub- 
lic library of the city (founded in 1873) may 
be seen a fine bust of Whittier, by Powers. 
On February 17 and 18, 1882, almost the 



32 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

entire business portion of the city was 
destroyed by fire; eight acres were burned 
over, and $2,000,000 worth of property 
destroyed. Haverhill is eighteen miles east 
of Lowell, thirty-two miles northwest of 
Boston, and six miles northeast of Law- 
rence. The manufacture of boots and 
shoes gives employment to 6,000 men. 
The population in 1870 was 13,092. 

Down to the sea, some seventeen miles 
away, winds the beautiful Merrimack, with 
the deep-shaded old town of Newburyport 
seated at its mouth. A little more than half 
way down lies Amesbury, just where the 
winding Powwow joins the Merrimack, but 
not before its nixies and river-horses have 
been compelled to put their shoulders to the 
wheels of several huge cotton mills that lift 
their forbidding bulk out of the very centre 
of the village. A horse-railroad connects 
Amesbury with Newburyport, six miles dis- 
tant. At about half that distance the road 
crosses the Merrimack by way of Deer Island 
and connecting bridges. The sole house on 
this wild, rough island is the home of the 
Spoffords. 

As you near Newburyport, coming down 



THE VALLEY OF THE MERRLMACK. Z2> 

from Amesbury, ^^ou see the river widened 
into an estuary, and bordered by wide and 
intensely green salt-meadows. Numerous 
large vessels lie at the wharves, a ^^gunde- 
low," with lateen sail, creeps slowly down 
the current; the draw of the railroad bridge 
is perhaps opening for the passage of a tug, 
and out at sea athwart the river's mouth — 

" Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, 
Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, 
A stone's toss over the narrow sound." 

Prophecy of Samuel Sewall. 

Far off to the left lie Salisbury and 
Hampton beaches, celebrated by Whittier 
in his poems "Hampton Beach," "Snow- 
Bound," and "The Tent on the Beach": — 

" Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 
The low green prairies of the sea." 

Snow-Boimd. 

Standing on the sand-ridge by the beach, 
you have before you the washing surf, and 
miles on miles of level sand, rimmed with 
creeping, silver water-lace, overhung here 
and there by thinnest powdery mist. Out 



34 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

at sea the waves are tossing their salt- 
threaded manes, or flinging the sunlight from 
their supple coats — (aeonian roar* white- 
haired, demoniac shapes) — while at evening 
you see far away to the northeast the revolv- 
ing light of the Isles of Shoals. 

" Quail and sandpiper and swallow and sparrow are here ; 
Sweet sound their manifold notes, high and low, far 

and near ; 
Chorus of musical waters, the rush of the breeze, 
Steady and strong from the south, — what glad voices 

are these ! " 

So sings the poet of the Isles of Shoals, 
Celia Thaxter, who, it is said, was dis- 
covered and introduced to the world by 
Whittier, — her rocky home being still one 
of his favorite summer resorts. 

Landward, your gaze sweeps the beauti- 
ful salt-meadows and rests on the woods 
beyond, or reaches still farther to the steeples 
of Newburyport rising sculpturesquely in, 
the pellucid atmosphere, and often at even- 
ing filling the air with faint silver hymns that 
chime with the liquid undertone of the 
pouring surf. 

The valley of the Merrimack with the 
surrounding region, is, or was until recently, 



THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK, 35 

full of legends of the marvellous and the 
supernatural, which, in this remote and iso- 
lated corner of the State, have come down 
in unbroken tradition from earlier times. 
One of the distinguishing peculiarities of 
Whittier's genius is his story -telling power, 
and since he has not only written many 
poems about the legends of his native prov- 
ince, but also published in his youth two 
small collections of those legends in prose 
form, it will be proper to give the reader 
a taste of them, both here and elsewhere 
in the volume, and thus assist him to an 
understanding of our poet's early environ- 
ment. 

The following extracts from his " Super- 
naturalism of New England," published in 
the year 1847, are germane to the subject in 
hand : ~ 

"One of my earliest recollections," he 
says, " is that of an old woman residing at 
Rocks Village, in Haverhill, about two 
miles from the place of my nativity, who for 
many years had borne the unenviable repu- 
tation of a witch. She certainly had the 
look of one, — a combination of form, voice, 



36 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

and features, which woulcj have made the 
fortune of an English witch-finder in the 
days of Matthew Paris or the Sir John Pod- 
gers of Dickens, and insured her speedy 
conviction in King James' High Court of 
Justiciary. She was accused of divers ill- 
doings, such as preventing the cream in her 
neighbor's churn from becoming butter, and 
snuffing out candles at huskings and quilt- 
ing parties. The poor old woman was at 
length so sadly annoyed by her unfortunate 
reputation, that she took the trouble to go 
before a Justice of the Peace, and made a 
solemn oath that she was a Christian woman 
and no witch." 

" Some forty years ago, on the banks of 
the pleasant little creek separating Berwick, 
in Maine, from Somersworth, in New Hamp- 
shire, within sight of my mother's home, 
dwelt a plain, sedate member of the Society 
of Friends, named Bantum. Pie passed, 
throughout a circle of several miles, as a 
conjurer and skilful adept in the art of 
magic. To him resorted farmers who had 
lost their cattle, matrons whose household 
gear, silver spoons, and table-linen had been 



THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK. 37 

stolen, and young maidens whose lovers 
were absent; and the quiet, meek-spirited 
old man received them all kindly, put on his 
huge, iron-rimmed spectacles, opened his 
^ conjuring book,' which my mother de- 
scribes as a large clasped volume, in strange 
language and black-letter type, and after due 
reflection and consideration gave the re- 
quired answers without money and without 
price. The curious old volume is still in 
possession of the conjurer's family. Appar- 
ently inconsistent as was this practice of tha 
Black Art with the simplicity and truthful- 
ness of his religious profession, I have not 
been able to learn that he was ever sub- 
jected to censure on account of it." 

This incident reminds one of some verses 
in a poem of Whittier's entitled " Flowers 
in Winter": — 

" A wizard of the Merrimack — 
So old ancestral legends say — 
Could call green leaf and blossom back 
To frosted stem and spray. 

The dry logs of the cottage wall, 

Beneath his touch, put out their leaves; 

The clay-bound swallow, at his call, 
Played round the icy eaves. 



38 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

The settler saw his oaken flail 

Take bud, and bloom before his eyes ; 

From frozen pools he saw the pale, 
Sweet summer lilies rise. 

The beechen platter sprouted wild, 
The pipkin wore its old-time green ; 

The cradle o'er the sleeping child 
Became a leafy screen." 

In chapter second of the " Supernatural- 
ism " we have a whimsical story about a 
certain " Aunt Morse," who lived in a town 
adjoining Amesbury: — 

" After the death of Aunt Morse no will 
was found, though it was understood before 
her decease that such a document was in 
the hands of Squire S., one of her neighbors. 
One cold winter evening, some weeks after 
her departure, Squire S. sat in his parlor, 
looking over his papers, when, hearing some 
one cough in a familiar way, he looked up, 
and saw before him a little crooked old 
woman, in an oil-nut colored woollen frock, 
blue and white tow and linen apron, and 
striped blanket, leaning her sharp, pinched 
face on one hand, while the other supported 
a short black tobacco pipe, at which she 



THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK. 39 

was puffing in the most vehement and spite- 
ful manner conceivable. 

"The squire w^as a man of some nerve; 
but his first thought was to attempt an es- 
cape, from which he was deterred only by 
the consideration that any effort to that 
effect would necessarily bring him nearer 
to his unwelcome visitor. 

"^ Aunt Morse,' he said at length, ^for the 
Lord's sake, get right back to the burying- 
ground! What on earth are you here for?' 

" The apparition took her pipe deliberately 
from her mouth, and informed him that she 
came to see justice done with her will; and 
that nobody need think of cheating her, 
dead or alive. Concluding her remark with 
a shrill emphasis, she replaced her pipe, and 
puffed away with renewed vigor. Upon the 
squire's promising to obey her request, she 
refilled her pipe, which she asked him to 
light, and then took her departure." 

"Elderly people in this region," says our 
author, "yet tell marvellous stories of Gen- 
eral -M., of Hampton, N. H., especially of 
his league with the devil, who used to visit 
him occasionally in the shape of a small man 
in a leathern dress. The general's house 



40 JOHN GREENLEAF VVHITTIER. 

was once burned, in revenge, as it is said, by 
the fiend, whom the former had outwitted. 
He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the 
general with a boot full of gold and silver 
poured annually down the chimney. The 
shrewd Yankee cut off, on one occasion, the 
foot of the boot, and the devil kept pouring 
down the coin from the chimney's top, in a 
vain attempt to fill it, until the room was 
literally packed with the precious metal. 
When the general died, he was laid out, 
and put in a coffin, as usual; but, on the 
day of the funeral, it was whispered about 
that his body was missing; and the neigh- 
bors came to the charitable conclusion that 
the enemy had got his own at last." 

It should be understood that the state of 
society which produced such superstitions 
and legends as the foregoing lingers now 
only in secluded corners of New England. 
The railroad, the newspaper, and the influx 
of foreign population, have combined to 
frighten away ghost, conjurer, and witch, or 
to drive them up into the mountainous dis- 
tricts. There are still plenty of quaint and 
picturesque old Puritan farmers; and their 



i/ALLEV OF THE MERRIMACK. 4^ 

mythology is antique and rusty enough, to 
be sure. But the folk-lore of the early clays, 
— where is it? Let the shriek of the steam- 
demon answer, or that powerful magician^ 
the " Spirit of the Age," who, ten thousand 
times divided, and slyly hidden in plethoric 
leathern mail bags, daily rushes into the re- 
i7?otest nooks and corners of the land, there 
to enter into the nooks and corners of the 
mind of man. The " Spirit of the Age " has 
exorcised the spirits of the ingle and the 
forest. 



42 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIEe 



CHAPTER III. 



BOYHOOD. 



The birthplace and early home of Whit- 
tier is a lonely farm-house situated at a dis- 
tance of three miles northeast of the city of 
Haverhill, Mass. The winding road lead- 
ing to it is the one described in " Snow- 
Bound." A drive or a walk of one mile 
brings you to sweet Kenoza Lake, with the 
castellated stone residence of Dr. J. R. 
Nichols crowning the summit of the high 
hill that overlooks it. From the hill the 
eye sweeps the horizon in every direction to 
a distance of fifty or a hundred miles. Far 
to the northwest rise bluely the three peaks 
of Monadnock. Nearer at hand, in the same 
direction, the towns of Atkinson and Straf- 
ford whiten the hillsides, while southward, 
through a clove in the hills, one catches a 
glimpse of the smoky city of Lawrence. 

Two other lakes besides Kenoza lie 



BOYHOOD 45 

in the immediate vicinity: namely, Round 
Lake and Lake Saltonstall. Kenoza is 
the lake in which Whittier used to fish and 
boat. It was he who gave to it its present 
name (meaning pickerel) : he wrote a very 
pretty poem for the day of the rechristening, 
in 1859. The lake lies in a bowl-shaped de- 
pression. The country thereabouts seems 
entirely made up of huge earth-bowls, here 
open to the sky, and there turned bottom- 
upwards to make hills. 

No prettier, quieter, lovelier lake than 
Kenoza exists, — a pure and spotless mirror, 
reflecting in its cool, translucent depths the 
rosy clouds of morning and of evening, the 
silver-azure tent of day, the gliding boat, 
the green meadow-grasses, and the massy 
foliage^ of the terraced pines and cedars that 
sweep upward from its waters in stately 
pomp, rank over rank, to meet the sky. 
Here, in one quarter of the lake, the surface 
is only wrinkled by the tiniest wavelets or 
crinkles; yonder, near another portion of 
its irregularly picturesque shore, a thousand 
white sun-butterflies seem dancing on the 
surface, and the loveliest wind-dapples 
curve and gleam.. Along the shore are 



46 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

sweet wild roses interpleached, and flower- 
de-luce, and yellow water-lilies. In such a 
circular earth-bowl the faintest sounds are 
easily heard across the water. Far off you 
hear the cheery cackle of a hen; in the 
meadows the singing of insects, the chat- 
tering of blackbirds, and the cry of the 
peewee; and the ring of the woodman's 
axe floats in rippling echoes over the water. 
In one of his earlier essays Mr. Whittier 
tells the foUov/ing romantic story: "Who- 
ever has seen Great Pond, in the East 
Parish of Haverhill, has seen one of the 
very loveliest of the thousand little lakes 
or ponds of New England. With its soft 
slopes of greenest verdure — its white and 
sparkling sand-rim — its southern hem of 
pine and maple, mirrored with spray and 
leaf in the glassy water — its graceful hill- 
sentinels round about, white with the 
orchard-bloom of spring, or tasselled with 
the corn of autumn — its long sweep of 
blue waters, broken here and there by pict- 
uresque headlands, — it would seem a spot, 
of all others, where spirits of evil must 
shrink, rebuked and abashed, from the 
presence of the beautiful. Yet here, too. 



BOYHOOD. - 47 

has the shadow of the supernatural fallen. 
A lady of my acquaintance, a staid, unim- 
aginative church-member, states that a few 
years ago she was standing in the angle 
formed by two roads, one of which traverses 
the pond-shore, the other leading over the 
hill which rises abruptly from the water. It 
was a warm summer evening, just at sunset. 
She was startled, by the appearance of a 
horse and cart of the kind used a century 
ago in New England, driving rapidly down 
the steep hillside, and crossing the wall a 
few yards before her, without noise or dis- 
placing of a stone. The driver sat sternly 
erect, with a fierce countenance; grasping 
the reins tightly, and looking neither to the 
right nor the left. Behind the cart, and 
apparently lashed to it, was a woman of 
gigantic size, her countenance convulsed 
with a blended expression of rage and 
agony, writhing and struggling, like Lao- 
coon in the folds of the serpent." The 
m3^sterious cart moved across the street, 
and disappeared at the margin of the 
pond. 

The two miles of road that separate 
Kenoza from the old Whittier homestead 



48 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

form a lonely stretch, passing between high 
hills rolled back on either side in wolds that 
show against the sky. The homestead is 
situated at the junction of the main road to 
Amesbury and a cross-road to Plaistow. 
It is as wild and lonel}^ a place as Craigen- 
puttock, — the hills shutting down all 
around, so that there is absolutely no 
prospect in any direction, and no other 
house visible. But so much the better for 
meditation. "The Children of the Light" 
need only their own souls to commune 
with. The expression that rose continually 
to the author's lips on visiting this place 
was a line from "Snow-Bound," — 

" A universe of sky and snow." 

Not that the time was winter, but that the 
.locality explained the line so vividl}/, — bet- 
ter than any commentary could do. Local- 
ity exercises a great influence on a poet's 
genius. Whitman, for example, has always 
lived by the sea, and he is the poet of the 
infinite. Whittier was born, and passed his 
boyhood and youth, in a green, sunken 
pocket of the inland hills, and he became 
the poet of the heart and the home. The 



f 

BOYHOOD, 49 

one poet wrestled with the waves of the sea 
and the waves of humanity in great cities; 
the other lived the simple, quiet life of a 
farmer, loving his mother, his sister, his 
Quaker sect, freedom, and his own hearth. 
Both are as lowly in origin as Carlyle or 
Burns. 

Between the front door of the old home- 
stead and the road rises a grassy, wooded 
bank, at the foot of which flows a little am- 
ber-colored brook. The brook is mentioned 
in " Snow-Bound ": — 

" We minded that the sharpest ear 
The buried brooklet could not hear, 
The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to us companionship, 
And, in our lonely life, had grown 
To have an almost human tone." 

Across the road is the barn. The house 
is very plain, and not very large. Entering 
the front door you are in a small entry with 
a steep, quaint, little staircase. On the 
right is the parlor where Whittier wrote. 
In the tiny, low-studded room on the left, he 
was born, and in the same room his father 
and "Uncle Moses" died. The room is 
4 



50 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIEF 

about fourteen by fourteen feet, is partly 
wainscoted, has a fireplace and three win- 
dows. 

All the windows in the house have small 
panes, nine in the upper and six in the 
lower sash. The building is supposed to be 
two hundred and twelve years old. The 
kitchen is, of course, the great attraction. 
Let us suppose that it is winter, and that we 
are all cosily seated around the blazing fire- 
place. Now, let us talk over together the 
old days and scenes. The best picture of 
the inner life of the Quaker farmer's family 
can of course be had in " Snow-Bound," — 
a little idyl as delicate, spontaneous, and 
true to nature in its limnings as a minute 
frost-picture on a pane of glass, or the fairy 
landscape richly mirrored in the film 
of a water-bubble. After such a picture, 
painted by the poet himself, it only remains 
for the writer to give a few supplementary 
touches here and there. The old kitchen, 
although diminished in size by a dividing 
partition, is otherwise almost unchanged. 
It is a cosey old room, with its fireplace, and 
huge breadth of chimney with inset cup- 
boards and oven and mantelpiece. Above 



BOYHOOD. 51 

the mantel is the nail where hung the old 
bull's-eye watch. Set into one side of the 
kitchen is the cupboard where the pewter 
plates and platters were ranged; and here 
upon the wall is the circle worn by the " old 
brass warming-pan, which formerly shone 
like a setting moon against the wall of the 
kitchen ": — 

" Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed. 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed. 
The house-dog on his paws outspread, 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow. 
The apples sputtered in a row. 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood." 

Snow-Bound, 



52 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

John Whittier, the father of the poet, is 
described by citizens of Haverhill as be- 
ing a rough but good, kind-hearted man. 
He went by the soubriquet of " Quaker 
Whycher." In " Snow-Bound," we learn 
something of his Wanderjahre^ — how he 
ate moose and samp in trapper's hut and 
Indian camp on Memphremagog's wooded 
side, and danced beneath St. Francois' hem- 
lock-trees, and ate chowder and hake-broil 
at the Isle of Shoals. He was a sturdy, de- 
cisive man, and deeply religious. Although 
there was no Friends' church in Haverhill, 
yet on ^^First-Days " Quaker Whycher's 
"one-hoss shay" could be seen wending 
toward the old brown meeting-house in 
Amesbury, six miles away. 

The mother has been alluded to in Chap- 
ter I. p. 12. Hers was a deeply emo- 
tional and religious nature, pure, chastened, 
and sweet, lovable, and kind-hearted to a 
fault. In "Snow-Bound," she tells incidents 
of her o^irlhood in Somersworth on the Pis- 
cataqua, and retells stories from Quaker 
Sewell's "ancient tome," and old sea-saint 
Chalkley's Journal. An incident in Mr. 



■%■} 



f — 7—5 




BOYHOOD. ' 55 

Whittier's "Yankee Gypsies" (Prose Works, 
II. p. 326,) will afford an indication of her 
kind-heartedness : — 

^^On one occasion," says the poet, "a few 
years ago, on my return from the field at 
evening, I was told that a foreigner had 
asked for lodgings during the night, but that, 
influenced by his dark, repulsive appearance, 
my mother had very reluctantly refused his 
request. I found her by no means satisfied 
wnth her decision. ^ What if a son of mine 
was in a strange land?' she inquired, self- 
reproachfully. Greatly to her relief, I vol- 
unteered to go in pursuit of the wanderer, 
and, taking a cross-path over the fields, soon 
overtook him. He had just been rejected at 
the house of our nearest neighbor, and was 
standing in a state of dubious perplexity in 
the street. His looks quite justified my 
mother's suspicions. He was an olive-com- 
plexioned, black-bearded Italian, with an e}'^ 
like a live coal, such a face as perchance 
looks out on the traveller in the passes of the 
Abruzzi, — one of those bandit-visages which 
Salvator has painted. With some difficulty, 
I gave him to understand my errand, when he 



56 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

overwhelmed me with thanks, and joyfully 
followed me back. He took his seat with us 
at the supper-table; and when we were all 
gathered around the hearth that cold au- 
tumnal evening, he told us, partly by words, 
and partly by gestures, the story of his life 
and misfortunes, amused us with descriptions 
of the grape-gatherings and festivals of his 
sunny clime, edified m}^ mother with a 
recipe for making bread of chestnuts; and 
in the morning when, after breakfast, his 
dark sullen face lighted up and his fierce eye 
moistened with grateful emotion as in his 
own silvery Tuscan accent he poured out 
his thanks, we marvelled at the fears which 
had so nearly closed our doors against him; 
and, as he departed, we all felt that he had 
left with us the blessing of the poor. 

" It was not often that, as in the above in- 
stance, my mother's prudence got the better 
of her charity. The regular ^old strag- 
glers' regarded her as an unfailing friend; 
and the sight of her plain cap was to them 
an assurance of forthcoming creature com- 
forts." 

In "Snow-Bound," too^ we learn that the 



BOYHOOD' 57 

good mother often stayed her step to express 
a warm word of gratitude for their own com- 
forts, and to hope that the unfortunate might 
be cared for also. It. is a facetious saying in 
Philadelphia that beggars are shipped to that 
city from all parts of the country that they 
may share the never-failing bounty of the 
Quakers, However this may be, it is evi- 
dent that benevolence was the predominant 
trait in the character of our poet's mother. 

Other members of the household in Whit- 
tier's boyhood were his elder sister Mary, 
who died in .1861; Uncle Moses Whittier, 
who in 1824 received fatal injuries from the 
falling of a tree which he was cutting down ; 
the poet's younger brother Matthew, who 
was born in 181 2, and has been for many 
years a resident of Boston, — himself a ver- 
sifier, and a contributor to the newspapers 
of humorous dialect articles, signed " Ethan 
Spike, from Hornby"; and finally the aunt, 
Mercy E. Hussey, the younger sister Eliza- 
beth, and occasionally the " half-welcome " 
eccentric guest, Harriet Livermore. 

Elizabeth Hussey Whittier — the younger 
sister and intimate literary companion of her 



58 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

brother, the poet — was a person of rare and 
saintly nature. In the little parlor of the 
Amesbury home there hangs a crayon sketch 
of her. The face wears a smile of unfailing 
sweetness and patience. That her literary 
and poetical accomplishments were of an 
unusually high order is shown by the poems 
of hers appended to Mr. Whittier's " Hazel 
Blossoms," published after her death. Her 
poem, " Dr. Kane in Cuba," would do honor 
to any poet. In the piece entitled the 
" Wedding Veil," we have a hint of an 
early love transformed by the death of its 
object into a spiritual worship and hope, 
nourished in the still fane of the heart. In 
the prefatory note to " Hazel Blossoms," 
Mr. Whittier says: "I have ventured, in 
compliance with the desire of dear friends 
of my beloved sister, Elizabeth H. Whittier, 
to add to this little volume the few poetical 
pieces which she left behind her. As she 
was very distrustful of her own powers, and 
altogether without ambition for literary 
distinction, she shunned everything like 
publicity, and found far greater happiness 
in generous appreciation of the gifts of her 
friends than in the cultivation of her own. 



BOYHOOD, 59 

Yet it has always seemed to me that, had 
her health, sense of duty and fitness, and 
her extreme self-distrust permitted, she 
might have taken a high place among lyr- 
ical singers. These poems, with perhaps 
two or three exceptions, afford but slight 
indications of the inward life of the writer, 
who had an almost morbid dread of spiritual 
and intellectual egotism, or of her tenderness 
of sympath}^, chastened mirthflilness, and 
pleasant play of thought and fancy, when 
her shy, beautiful soul opened like a flower 
in the warmth of social communion. In 
the lines on Dr. Kane, her friends will see 
something of her fine individuality, — the 
rare mingling of delicacy and intensity of 
feeling which made her dear to them. This 
little poem reached Cuba while the great 
explorer lay on his death-bed, and we are 
told that he listened with grateful tears 
while it was read to him by his mother. 

" I am tempted to say more, but I write 
as under the eye of her who, while with us, 
shrank with painful deprecation from the 
praise or mention of performances which 
seemed so far below her ideal of excellence. 
To those who best knew her, the beloved 



6o JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

circle of her intimate friends, I dedicate this 
slight memorial." 

Many readers of " Snow-Bound " have 
doubtless often wondered who the beauti- 
ful and mysterious young woman is who 
is sketched in such vigorous portraiture, — 
"the not unfeared, half-welcome guest," 
half saint and half shrew. She is no other 
than the religious enthusiast and fanatical 
" pilgrim preacher," Harriet Livermore,* the 
same who startled 

" On her desert throne 
The crazy Queen of Lebanon 
With claims fantastic as her own." 

By the "Queen of Lebanon" is meant Lady 
Hester Stanhope. Harriet Livermore was 
the grand-daughter of Hon. Samuel Liver- 
more, of Portsmouth, N. H., and the daugh- 
ter of Hon. Edward St. Loe Livermore, of 
Lowell. She was born April 14, 1788, at 
Concord, N. H. Her misfortune was her 
temper, inherited from her father. When 
Whittier was a little boy, she taught needle- 
work, embroidery, and the common school 

* For manj items of information concerning this strange 
woman we are indebted to the sketch of her published bj Mis» 
Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill. 



BOYHOOD. 6 1 

branches, in the little old brown school-house 
in East Haverhill, and was a frequent guest 
at Farmer Whittier's. The poet thus char- 
acterizes her: — 

" A certain pard-Iike, treacherous grace 
Swayed the lithe Umbs and dropped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 
And under low brows, black with night, 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 
Presaging ill to him whom Fate 
Condemned to share her love or hate. 
A woman tropical, intense ' ^ 

In thought and act, in soul and sense." 

When a mere girl, she fell in love with a 
young gentleman of East Haverhill, but the 
parents of both families opposed the match, 
and were not to be moved by her honeyed 
words of persuasion or by her little gifts. 
The poet says she often visited at his father's 
home, "and had at one time an idea of be- 
coming a member of the Society of Friends; 
but an unlucky outburst of rage, resulting in 
a blow, at a Friend's house in Amesbury, did 
not encourage us to seek her membership." 
She embraced the Methodist Perfectionist 
doctrine, and one day strenuously main- 
tained that she was incapable of sinning. 



62 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

But a few minutes afterward she burst 
out into a violent passion about something 
or other. Her opponent could only say to 
her, " Christian, thou hast lost thy roll." 
She became an itinerant preacher, and spoke 
in the meetings of various sects in different 
parts of the country. She made three voy- 
ages to Jerusalem. Says one: "At one 
time we find her in Egypt, giving our late 
consul, Mr. Thayer, a world of trouble from 
her peculiar notions. At another we see 
her amid the gray olive slopes of Jerusalem, 
demanding, not begging, money for the 
Great King [God]. And once when an 
American, fresh from home, during the late 
rebellion, offered her a handful of green- 
backs, she threw them away with disdain, 
saying, ' The Great King will onl}^ have 
o^old.' She once climbed the sides of Mt. 
Libanus, and visited Lady Stanhope, — that 
eccentric sister of the younger Pitt, who 
married a sheik of the mountains, — and thus 
had a fine opportunity of securing the finest 
steeds of the Orient. Going to the stable 
one day. Lady Hester pointed out to Harriet 
Livermore two very fine horses, with pecu- 
liar marks, but differing in color. ^ That 



BOYHOOD, 6 



J 



one,' said Lady Hester, ^the Great King 
when he comes will ride, and the other I 
will ride in company with him.' There- 
upon Miss Livermore gave a most emphatic 
^no!' declaring with foreknowledge and 
aflo7nb that ^ the Great King will ride this 
horse, and it is I, as his bride, who will ride 
upon the other at his second coming.' It is 
said she carried her point with Lad}^ Hes- 
ter, overpowering her with her fluency and 
assertion." 

To pass now to the boy-poet himself. 
An old friend and schoolmate of his, in 
Haverhill, told the author that Whittier, in- 
stead of doing sums on his slate at school, 
was always writing verses, even w^hen a lit- 
tle lad. His first schoolmaster was Joshua 
Cofiin, afterward the historian of Newbury. 
Another master of his was named Emerson. 
To Coffin, Whittier .has written a poetical 
epistle, in which he says: — 

" I, the urchin unto whom, 
In that smoked and dingy room, 
Where the district gave thee rule 
O'er its ragged winter school, 
Thou didst teach the mysteries 
Of those weary A, B, C's, — 



64 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

Where, to fill the every pause 
Of thy wise and learned saws, 
Through the cracked and crazy walx 
Came the cradle-rock and squall, 
And the goodman's voice, at strife 
With his shrill and tipsy wife, — 
Luring us by stories old, 
With a comic unction told. 
More than by the eloquence 
Of terse birchen arguments 
(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look 
With complacence on a book 1 — 

I, — the man of middle years, 
In whose sable locks appears 
Many a warning fleck of gray, — 
Looking back to that far day, 
And thy primal lessons, feel 
Grateful smiles my lips unseal," etc. 

In "School Days" he gives us another 
and a pleasanter picture: — 

" Still sits the school-house by the road,* 
A ragged beggar sunning ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow. 
And blackberry-vines are running. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 

Deep scarred by raps official ; 
The warping floor, the battered seats, 

The jack-knife's carved initial; 

*The old brown school-house is now no more, having 
been removed to make room for a reservoir. 



BOYHOOD. 67 

The charcoal frescos on its wall ; 

Its door's worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school 

Went storming out to playing ! 

Long years ago a winter sun 

Shone over it at setting ; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 

And low eaves' icy fretting. 

It touched the tangled golden curls. 

And brown eyes full of grieving, 
Of one who still her steps delayed 

When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy 

Her childish favor singled: 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow 

To right and left, he lingered ; — 
As restlessly her tiny hands 

The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 

The soft hand's' light caressing, 
And heard the tremble of her voice, 

As if a fault confessing. 

* I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : 

I hate to go above you. 
Because,' — the brown eyes lower fell, — 
* Because, you see, I love you ! ' " 



68 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

It is probable that " My Playmate " is in 
memory of this same sweet little lady: — 

" O playmate in the golden time ! 
Our mossy seat is green, 
Its fringing violets blossom yet, 
The old trees o'er it lean. 

The winds so sweet with birch and fern 

A sweeter memory blow ; 
And there in spring the veeries sing 

The song of long ago. 

And still the pines of Ramoth Wood 

Are moaning like the sea, — 
The moaning of the sea of change 

Between myself and thee ! " 

Elsewhere in the poem we are told that 
the little maiden went away forever to the 
South: — 

" She lives where all the golden year 
Her smnmer roses blow ; 
The dusky children of the sun 
Before her come and go. 

There haply with her jewelled hands 
She smooths her silken gown, — 

No more the homespun lap wherein 
I shook the walnuts down." 

We also learn from the poem that he was 
the boy "who fed her father's kine." What 



BOYHOOD. 69 

a pretty little romance! — and, let us hope, 
not too sad a one. Shall we have one more 
stanza about this lovely little school-idyl? 
It is from "^^ Memories": — 

" I hear again thv low replies, 

I feel thy aiiii within my own, 
And timidly again uprise 
The fringed lids of hazel eyes, 

With soft brown tresses overblown. 
Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves, 

Of moonlit wave and willowy way. 
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, 

And smiles and tones more dear than they ! " 

The reading material that found its way 
to Farmer Whittier's house consisted of the 
almanac, the weekly village paper, and 
"scarce a score ^' of books and pamphlets, 
among them Li ndley Murray's "Reader": — 

" One harmless novel, mostly hid 
From younger eyes, a book forbid, 
And poetry (or good or bad, 
A single book was all we had), 
Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 
A stranger to the heathen Nine, 
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 
The wars of David and the Jews." 

Knowing, as we do, the great influence 
exerted upon our mental development by 



70 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

the books we read as children, and knowing 
that a rural life, such as Whittier's has been, 
is especially conducive to tenacity of early 
customs, it becomes important to know 
what the books were that first formed his 
style and colored his thought. It seems 
that Ell wood's "Davideis; or the Life of 
David, King of Israel," was one of these. 
The book was published in 1711, and had 
a sale of five or more editions. EUwood, 
born in 1639, early adopted the then new 
doctrines of George Fox. He has written 
a quaint and pictorial autobiography, some- 
what like that of Bun37an or that of Fox. 
In 1662 he was for six weeks reader to 
Milton, who was then blind, and living in 
London, in Jewin Street. It was he who 
first suggested to Milton that he should 
write "Paradise Regained."^ 

* This was in 1665, when Milton was living at Giles-Chal- 
font. Ellwood sajs : "After some common discourse had 
passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, which 
he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me and 
read it at mj leisure; and, when I had done so, return it to 
him with my judgment thereon." It was " Paradise Lost." 
When Ellwood returned it, and was asked his opinion, he 
gave it, and added : " ' Thou hast said much here of *' Para- 
dise Lost," but what hast thou to say of " Paradise Found ".?' 
He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse." 



\^ BOYHOOD, 71 

An idea of the execrable nature of his 
versification may be obtained from a few 
specimens. Upon the passing of a severe 
law against Quakers, he relieves his mind 
in this wise: — 

"Awake, awake, O arm o' th' Lord, awake! 
Thy sword up take ; 
Cast what would thine forgetful of thee make, 

Into the lake. 
Awake, I pray, O mighty J ah ! awake. 
Make all the world before thy presence quaLe, 
Not only earth, but heaven also shake." 

Another poem, entitled '' A Song of the 
Mercies and Deliverances of the Lord/^ 
begins thus: — 

" Had not the Lord been on our side, 
May Israel now say. 
We were not able to abide 
The trials of that day : 

V^hen men did up against us rise, 

With fury, rage, and spite. 
Hoping to catch us by surprise, 

Or run us down by night." 

An opponent's poetry iJ lashed by Ell- 
wood in such beautiful ^y^anzas as the fol- 
ic winoj: — 



72 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

^^^oflaf, so duH, so rough, so void of sr^ce^ 
Where symphony and cadence have no place ] 
So full of chasmes stuck With J>rosie pegs ^ 
Whereon his tired Muse might rest her legs, 
(Not having wings) and take new breath, that then 
* She might with much adoe hop on again." 

A Striking peculiarity of Whittier's poetry 
is the exceedingly small range of his rhymes 
and metres. He is especially fond of the 
four-foot iambic line, and likes to rhyme 
successive or alternate lines in a wofully 
monotonous and see-saw manner. These 
are the characteristics of much of the lyric 
poetr}^ of a hundred years ago, and especially 
distinguish the verses of Burns and Ellwood, 
— the first poets the boy Whittier read. 
Burns, especially, he learned by heart, and 
there can be no doubt that the Ayrshire 
ploughman gave to the mind of his brother- 
ploughman of Essex its life-direction and 
coloring, — ■ as respects the sw^ing of rhythm 
and rhyme at least. Indeed, we shall 
presently find him contributing to the 
Haverhill Gazette verses in the Scotch dia- 
lect. His introduction to the poetry of 
Burns was in this wise: He was one after- 
noon gathering in hay on the farm, when by 



BOYHOOD, 11 

good hap a wandering peddler stopped and 
took from his pack a copy of Burns, which 
was eagerly purchased by the poetical 
Quaker boy. Alluding to the circumstance 
afterward in his poem, "Burns," he says: — 

" How oft that day, with fond delay, 
I sought the maple's shadow, 
And sang with Burns the hours away, 
Forgetful of the meadow ! 

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead 

I heard the squirrels leaping, 
The good dog listened while I read, 

And wagged his tail in keeping." 

% 

By the reading of Burns his e3^es were 
opened, he says, to the beauty in homely 
things. In familiar and humble things he 
found the "tender idyls of the heart." 
But the wanton and the ribald lines of the 
Scotch poet found no entrance to his pure 
mind.^ 

He had other relishing tastes of the rich 
dialect of heather poetry. In "Yankee 
Gypsies" he says: "One day we had a call 
from a ^ pawky auld carle' of a wandering 
Scotchman. To him I owe my first intro- 
duction to the songs of Burns. After eating 

* See Appendix II. 



74 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

his bread and cheese and drinking his inug 
of cider, he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland 
Mary, and Auld Lang Syne. He had a lich 
full voice, and entered heartily into the 
spirit of his lyrics. I have since listened to 
the same melodies from the lips of Demp- 
ster (than whom the Scottish bard has had 
no sw^eeter or truer interpreter) ; but the 
skilful performance of the artist lacked the 
novel charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in 
the old farm-house kitchen." 

A page or tw^o of these personal recollec- 
tions of the poet will serve to fill out the 
picture of his boyhood life; and, at the same 
time, give the reader a taste of his often 
charming prose pieces: — 

" The advent of wandering beggars, or 
^old stragglers,' as we were wont to call 
them, was an event of no ordinary interest 
in the generally monotonous quietude of oui 
farm life. Many of them were 'ivell known ; 
they had their periodiral revolutions and 
transits; we could calculate them like 
eclipses or new moons. Some were sturdy 
knaves, fat and saucy; and whenever they 
ascertained that the ^ men-folks ' were ab- 



BOYHOOD, 75 

sent would order provisions and cider like 
men who expected to pay for them, seating 
themselves at the hearth or table with the 
air of Falstaff, — ^ Shall I not take mine ease 
in mine own inn?' Others poor, pale, 
patient, like Sterne's monk, came creeping 
up to the door, hat in hand, standing there 
in their gray wretchedness, with a look of 
heart-break and forlornness which was never 
without its effect on our juvenile sensibilities. 
At times, however, we experienced a slight 
revulsion of feeling when even these hum- 
blest children of sorrow somewhat petu^ 
lantly rejected our proffered bread and 
cheese, and demanded instead a glass of 

cider. 

• • • • • 

" One — I think I see him now, grim, 
gaunt, and ghastly, working his way up to 
our door — used to gather herbs by the 
wayside, and call himself doctor. He was 
bearded like a he-goat, and used to counter- 
feit lameness, yet when he supposed himself 
alone would travel on lustily, as if walking 
for a wager. At length, as if in punishment 
for his deceit, he met with an accident in 
his rambles, and became lame in earnest, 



7^ JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

hobbling ever after with difficulty on his 
gnarled crutches. Another used to go 
stooping, like Bunyan's pilgrim, under a 
pack made of aii old bed-sacking, stuffed 
out into most plethoric dimensions, totter- 
ing on a pair of small, meagre legs, and 
peering out with his wild, hairy face from 
under his burden, like a big-bodied spider. 
That ^ man with the pack ' always inspired 
me with awe and reverence. Huge, almost 
sublime in its tense rotundity, the father 
of all packs, never laid aside and never 
opened, what might there not be within it! 
With what flesh-creeping curiosity I used to 
walk round about it at a safe distance, half 
expecting to see its striped covering stirred 
by the motions of a mysterious life, or that 
some evil monster would leap out of it, like 
robbers from Ali Baba's jars, or armed men 
from the Trojan horse ! " 

" Twice a year, usually in the spring and 
autumn, we were honored with a call from 
Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses, peddler 
and poet, physician and parson, — a Yankee 
Troubadour, — first and last minstrel of the 
valley of the Merrimack, encircled to my 



BOYHOOD. y^J 

wondering eyes with the very nimbus of 
immortality. He brought with him pins, 
needles, tape, and cotton thread for my 
mother; jack-knives, razors, and soap for 
my father; and verses of his own compos- 
ing, coarsely printed and illustrated with 
rude woodcuts, for the delectation of the 
younger branches of the family. No love- 
sick youth could drown himself, no deserted 
maiden bewail the moon, no rogue mount 
the gallows, without fitting memorial in 
Plummer's verses. Earthquakes, fires, fevers 
and shipwrecks he regarded as personal 
favors from Providence, furnishing the raw 
material of song and ballad. Welcome 
to us in our country seclusion as Autolycus 
to the clown in Winter's Tale, w^e listened 
with infinite satisfaction to his readings of 
his own verses, or to his ready improvisa- 
tion upon some domestic incident or topic 
suggested by his auditors. When once 
fairly over the difficulties at the outset of a 
new subject, his rhymes flowed freely, ^ as 
if he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears 
grew to his tunes.' His productions an- 
sw^ered, as nearly as I can remember, to 
Shakespeare's description of a proper ballad, 



78 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

— Moleful matter merrily set down, or a 
very pleasant theme sung lamentably.' He 
was scrupulously conscientious, devout, in- 
clined to theological disquisitions, and withal 
mighty in Scripture. He was thoroughly 
independent; flattered nobody, cared for 
nobody, trusted nobody. When invited to 
sit down at our dinner-table, he invariably 
took the precaution to place his basket of 
valuables between his legs for safe-keeping. 
^ Never mind thy basket, Jonathan,' said my 
father, ^ we shan't steal thy verses.' ^ I'm 
not sure of that,' returned the suspicious 
guest. ^ It is written. Trust ye not in any 
brother.'" 

"Thou, too, O Parson B., — with thy pale 
student's brow and thy rubicund nose, with 
thy rusty and tattered black coat, overswept 
by white flowing locks, with thy professional 
white neckcloth scrupulously preserved, 
when even a shirt to thy back was problem- 
atical, — art by no means to be overlooked 
in the muster-roll of vagrant gentlemen pos- 
sessing the entree of our farm-house. Well 
do we remember with what grave and dig- 
nified courtesy he used to step over its 



BOYHOOD. 79 

threshold, saluting its inmates with the same 
air of gracious condescension and patronage 
with which in better days he had delighted 
the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old 
man! He had once been the admired and 
almost worshipped minister of the largest 
church in the town, where he afterwards 
found support in the winter season as a 
pauper. He had early fallen into intemper- 
ate habits, and at the age of threescore and 
ten, when I remember him, he was only 
sober when he lacked the means of being 
otherwise." 

Among the books read by Whittier when 
a boy we must number the " Pilgrim's 
Procuress " of Bunvan. 

In his " Supernaturalism of New England " 
the poet says: " How hardly effaced are the 
impressions of childhood! Even at this day, 
at the mention of the Evil Angel, an image 
rises before me like that with which I used 
especially to horrify m3^self in an old copy 
of ^Pilgrim's Progress.' Horned, hoofed, 
scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal extremity 
twisted tight with rage, I remember him 
illustrating the tremendous encounter of 



8o JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Christian in the valley where '' Apollyon 
straddled over the whole breadth of the 
way.' There was another print of the 
enemy which made no slight impression 
upon me; it was the frontispiece of an old, 
smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet (the prop- 
erty of an elderly lady, who had a fine col- 
lection of similar wonders, wherewith she 
was kind enough to edify her young visit- 
ors), containing a solemn account of the fate 
of a wicked dancing party in New Jerse}^, 
whose irreverent declaration that they would 
have a fiddler, if they had to send to the 
lower regions after him, called up the fiend 
himself, who forthwith commenced playing, 
while the company danced to the music 
incessantly, without the power to suspend 
their exercise until their feet and legs were 
worn off to the knees! The rude wood- 
cut represented the Demon Fiddler and his 
agonized companions literally stumping it 
up and down in ^cotillions, jigs, strathspeys, 
and reels.'" 

So grew up the Quaker farmer's son, 
drinking eagerly in such knowledge as he 
could, and receiving those impressions of 



BOYHOOD. 8 1 

nature and home-life which he was after- 
ward to embody in his popular lyrics and 
idyls. Above all, his home education satu- 
rated his mind with religious and moral 
earnestness. In the second part of this vol- 
ume will be given some remarks on Quaker 
life in America, and an analysis of the 
blended influence of Quakerism and Puri- 
tanism upon the development of Whittier's 
genius. Enough has been said to show that 
the surroundings of his early life were of 
the plainest and simplest character, and not 
different from those of a thousand other 
secluded New England farms of the period. 
We are now to follow the shy young poet 
out into the world. He is nineteen years of 
age. The circle of his experiences begins 
to widen outward; manhood is dawning; 
the village paper has taught him that there 
are men beyond the mountains. He thirsts 
for individuality, — to know his powers, to 
cast the horoscope of his future, and see if 
the consciousness within him of unusual gifts 
be a trustworthy one. To begin with, he 
will write a poem for " our weekly paper." 
Accordingl}^ one day in 1826 the following 
poem, written in blue ink on coarse paper, 
6^ 



82 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

was slipped by the postman under the door 
of the office of the Free Press, in Newbury- 
port, — a short-lived paper, then recently 
started by young William Lloyd Garrison, 
and subscribed for by Farmer Whittier. 

The poem is the first ever published by 
the poet, and is his earliest known produc- 
tion.* The manuscript of it is now in the 
possession of Whittier's kinsman, Mr. S. T. 
Pickard, associate editor of the Portland 
Transcript, in which journal it was repub- 
lished November 27, 1880: — 

THE DEITY. 

The Prophet stood 
On the high mount and saw the tempest-cloud 
Pour the fierce whirlwind from its reservoir 
Of congregated gloom. The mountain oak 
Torn from the earth heaved high its roots where once 
Its branches waved. The fir-tree's shapely form 
Smote by the tempest lashed the mountain side ; 
Yet, calm in conscious purity, the seer 
Beheld the awful devastation, for 
The Eternal Spirit moved not in the storm. 

The tempest ceased. The caverned earthquake burst 
Forth from its prison, and the mountain rocked 
Even to its base : The topmost crags were thrown 
With fearful crashing down its shuddering slopes. 
Unawed the Prophet saw and heard : He felt 
Not in the earthquake moved the God of Heaven. 
* See note on p. 301. 



BOYHOOD. 83 

The murmur died away, and from the height, 
Torn by the storm and shattered by the shock, 
Rose far and clear a pyramid of flame, 
Mighty and vast ! The startled mountain deer 
Shrank from its glare and cowered beneath the shade : 
The wild fowl shrieked ; yet even then the seer 
Untrembling stood and marked the fearful glow — 
For Israel's God came not within the flame. 

The fiery beacon sank. A still small voice 
Now caught the Prophet's ear. Its awful tone. 
Unlike to human sound, at once conveyed 
Deep awe and reverence to his pious heart. 
Then bowed the holy man ; his face he veiled 
Within his mantle, and in meekness owned 
The presence of his God, discovered not in 
The storm, the earthquake, or the mighty flame, 
But in the still small whisper to his soul. 

It is characteristic of the man that his 
first poem should be of a religious nature. 
There is grandeur and majesty in the poem. 
The rhetoric is juvenile, but the diction is 
strong, nervous, and intense, and the general 
impression made upon the mind is one of har- 
mony and solemn stateliness, not unlike that 
of '-Thanatopsis," composed by Bryant when 
he was about the same age as was Whittier 
when he wrote " The Deity." It was prob- 
ably owing to its anonymity that the first 
impulse of the editor was to throw it into 



84 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

the waste-basket. But as he glanced over 
the sheet his attention was caught: he read 
it, and some weeks afterward pubHshed it 
in the poet's corner. But in the interval of 
v/aiting the boy's heart sank within him. 
Every writer knows what he suffered. Did 
we not all expect that first precious produc- 
tion of ours to fairly set the editor wild with 
enthusiasm, so that nothing short of death or 
apoplexy could prevent him from assigning 
it the most conspicuous position in the ve7'y 
next issue of his paper? 

But one day, as our boy-poet was mend- 
ing a stone fence along the highway, in com- 
pany with Uncle Moses, along came the 
postman on horseback, with his leathern bag 
of mail, like a magician with a Fortuna- 
tus' purse; and, to save the trouble of call- 
ing at the house, he tossed a paper to young 
Whittier. He opened it with eager fingers, 
and behold! his poem in the place of honor. 
He says that he was so dumfounded and 
dazed by the event that he could not read a 
word, but stood there staring at the paper 
until his uncle chided him for loitering, and 
so recalled him to his senses. Elated by 
his success, he of course sent other poems 



BOYHOOD. .85 

to the Fi'ee Press. They attracted the at- 
tention of Garrison so strongly that he in- 
quired of the postman who it was that was 
sending him contributions from East Haver- 
hill. The postman said that it was a 
"farmer's son named Whittier." Garrison 
decided to ride over on horseback, a distance 
of fifteen miles, and see his contributor. 
When he reached the farm, Whittier was at 
work in the field, and when told that there 
was a gentleman at the house who wanted 
to see him, he felt very much like "break- 
ing for the brush," no one having ever called 
on him in that way before. However, he 
slipped in at the back door, made his toilet, 
and met his visitor, who told him that he 
had power as a writer, and urged him to 
improve his talents. The father came in 
during the conversation, and asked young 
Garrison not to put such ideas into the mind 
of his son, as they would only unfit him for 
his home duties. But, fortunately, it was too 
late: the spark of ambition had been fanned 
into a flame. Years afterward, in an in- 
troduction to Oliver Johnson's "William 
Lloyd Garrison and his Times," Mr. 
Whittier said: "My acquaintance with him 



86 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

[Garrison] commenced in boyhood. My 
father was a subscriber to his first paper, 
the Free Press ^ and the humanitarian tone 
of his editorials awakened a deep interest 
in our little household, which was increased 
by a visit he made us. When he after- 
wards edited the Journal of the Times ^ at 
Bennington, Vt., I ventured to write him 
a letter of encouragement and sympathy, 
urorinor him to continue his labors ao^ainst 
slavery, and assuririg him that he could do 
great things." Indeed, the acquaintance 
thus begun ripened into the most intimate 
friendship and mutual respect. Mr. Whit- 
tier told the writer that when he went to 
Boston, in the winter of 1828-29, he and 
Garrison roomed and boarded at the same 
house. Mr. Whittier frequently contrib- 
uted to the Liberator^ and v/as for a quarter 
of a century associated with Garrison in 
anti-slavery labors. 

Before we pass with our young Quaker 
from the farm to the world at large, let us 
correct an erroneous statement that has been 
made about him. It has been said that he 
worked at the trade of shoemaking when a 



BOYHOOD. ^J 

boy. The truth is that almost every farmer 
in those days was accustomed to do a little 
cobbling of his own, and what shoemaker's 
work Whittier performed was done by him 
solely as an amateur in his father's house. 

In the year of his de,but as a poet (1826), 
he being then nineteen years of age, Whit- 
tier beg^an attendino^ the Haverhill Acad- 
emy, or Latin School. Whether his parents 
were influenced to take this step for his 
advantage by the visit of the editor Garrison, 
and by his evident taste for learning, is not 
positively known, but it .is quite possible that 
such was the case. In 1827 he read an orig- 
inal ode at the dedication of the new Acad- 
emy. The building is still standing on 
Winter Street. While at the Academy 
he read history very thoroughly, and his 
writings show that it has always been a 
favorite study with him. He also contrib- 
uted poems at this time to the Havej^hill 
Gazette. Many of them were in the Scotch 
dialect: it would be interesting to see a 
few of these; but unfortunately no file of the 
Gazette for those years can be found. A 
friendly rival in the writing of Scotch poems 



88 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

was good Robert Dinsmore, the "Farmer 
Poet of Windham," as Whittier calls him. A 
few specimens of Farmer Dinsmore's verse 
have been preserved. Take this on " The 
Sparrow" : — 

" Poor innocent and hapless Sparrow ! 
Why should my moul-board gie thee sorrow? 
This day thou'll chirp, and mourn the morrow 

Wi' anxious breast ; 
The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow 

Deep o'er thy nest ! 

Just i' the middle o' the hill 

Thy nest was placed wi' curious skill, 

There I espied thy little bill 

Beneath the shade. 
In that sweet bower, secure frae ill, 

Thine eggs were laid. 

Five corns o' maize had there been drappit, 
An' through the stalks thy head was pappit, 
The drawing nowt could na be stappit 

I quickly foun'. 
Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit, 

Wild fluttering roun'. 

The sklentin stane beguiled the sheer, 
In vain I tried the plough to steer, 
A wee bit stumpie i' the rear 

Cam 'tween my legs, 
An' to the jee-side gart me veer 

An' crush thine eggs." 



BOYHOOD. 89 

The following elegiac stanza, written by 
honest Robert on the occasion of the death 
of his wife, is irresistibly ludicrous: — 

"No more may I the Spring Brook trace, 
No more with sorrow view the place 

Where Mary's w^ash-tub stood ; 
No more may wander there alone, 
And lean upon the mossy stone, 

Where once she piled her wood. 
'T was there she bleached her linen cloth. 

By yonder bass-wood tree ; 
From that sweet stream she made her broth, 

Her pudding and her tea." 

Mr. Whittier says that the last time he 
saw Robert, "Threescore years and ten, to 
use his own words, 

* Hung o'er his back. 
And bent him like a muckle pack,' 

yet he still stood stoutly and sturdily in his 
thick shoes of cowhide, like one accustomed 
to tread independently the soil of his own 
acres, — -his broad, honest face seamed by 
care and darkened by exposure to all the 
^airts that blow,' and his white hair flowing 
in patriarchal glory beneath his felt hat. 
A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man, 



90 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

simple as a child, and betraying neither 
in look nor manner that he was accustomed 

to 

' Feed on thoughts which voluntary move 
Harmonious numbers.' " 



EDITOit AND AUTHOR. QI 



CHAPTER IV. 

EDITOR AND AUTHOR : FIRST VENTURES. 

The winter of 1828-29 was passed by 
Whittier in Boston. He once with charac- 
teristic modesty told the writer that he 
drifted into journalism that winter, as edi- 
tor of the American Manufacturer, in the 
following way: He had gone to Boston 
to study and read. He undertook the 
writing for the Manufacturer not be- 
cause he had much liking for questions of 
tariff and finance, but because his own 
finances would thereby be improved. Mr. 
Whittier's chief personal trait is extreme 
shyness and distrust of himself, and he dep- 
recated the idea that he had any special 
power as a writer at the time of which we 
are speaking, sa3ang that he had to study up 
his subjects before writing. But undoubtedly 
he must have wielded a vigorous pen, and 
been known to possess a cool and careful 



92 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

head, or he would not have been invited to 
assume the editorship of such a paper. He 
himself admitted, in the course of the con- 
versation, that at that time he had political 
ambitions, and made a stud}^ of political 
economy and civil polities. 

In 1830 we find Whittier at Haverhill 
again. In March of that 3'ear he w^as occu- 
pying the position of editor of the Essex 
Gazette^ and " issued proposals to publish a 
"^ History of Haverhill,' in one volume of 
two hundred pages, duodecimo, price 
eighty-seven and one-half cents per copy. 
^ If the material swelled the volume 
above two hundred pages, the price 
was to be one dollar per copy.'" But 
the limited encouragement offered, and the 
amount of w^ork required to compile the 
volume, led the young editor to abandon the 
project. Whittier was editor of this Ga- 
zette for six months, — from January i to 
July 10, 1830. On May 4, 1836, after he 
had returned from Philadelphia, he resumed 
the editorship of the journal, retaining the 
position until December 17 of the same year. 

He left the Gazette at the time of his 
first connection with it, to go to Hartford 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR. 93 

for the purpose of editing the Neiv Eng- 
land Weekly Revietv of that city. His 
first acquaintance with this Connecticut 
periodical had been made while attending the 
Academy at Haverhill. While there he 
happened to see a copy of the Review^ then 
edited by George D. Prentice. He was 
pleased with its sprightly and breezy tone, 
and sent it several articles. Great was his 
astonishment on finding that they were 
accepted and published with editorial com- 
mendation. He sent numerous other con- 
tributions during the same year. 

One day in 1830, he was at work in the 
field, when a letter was brought to him from 
the publishers of the Hartford paper, in 
which they said that they had been asked 
by Mr. Prentice to request him to edit the 
paper during the absence of Mr. Prentice 
in Kentucky, whither he had gone to write 
a campaign life of Henry Clay. "I could 
not have been more utterly astonished," said 
Mr, Whittier once, ^Mf I had been told that 
I was appointed prime minister to the great 
Khan of Tartary." 

Mr. Whittier was at this time a member 



94 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

of the National Republican party. He 
afterward belonged to the anti-slavery 
Liberty party, a faction of the Abolitionists 
which had separated from the Garrison 
band. In 1855 Mr. Whittier acted with the 
Free Democratic party. In the conversation 
alluded to a moment ago, the poet laugh- 
ingly remarked that the proprietors of the 
paper had never seen him when he went to 
Hartford in 1830 to take charge of their 
periodical. They were much surprised at his 
3'^outh. But at the first m.eeting he discreetly 
kept silence, letting them do most of the 
talking. Here most assuredly, if never again, 
his Quaker doctrine of silence stood him in 
good stead; since, if we may believe him, 
he was most wofuUy deficient in a knowl- 
edge of the intricacies of the political sit- 
uation of the time. 

Whittier was twenty-four years old when 
he published his first volume. It is a thin 
little book entitled ^^ Legends of New Eng- 
land" (Hartford: Hanmer and Phelps, 183 1), 
and is a medley of prose and verse. The 
style is juvenile and exti^avagantly rhetori- 
cal, and the subject-matter is far from being 
massive with thought. The libretto has 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR. 95 

been suppressed by its author, and it would 
be ungracious as well as unjust to criticise it 
at any length, or quote more than a single 
morsel of its verses, which are inferior to 
the prose. But one may be pardoned for 
giving two or three specimens of the prose 
stories, for they are intrinsically interesting. 
In the preface we have a striking passage, 
which may be commended to those who 
accuse Whittier of hatred of the Puritan 
fathers, and undue partiality toward the 
Quakers. He sa37s: ^^ I have in many in- 
stances alluded to the superstition and big- 
otry of our ancestors, the rare and bold race 
who laid the foundation of this republic; 
but no one can accuse me of having done 
injustice to their memories. A son of New 
England, and proud of my birthplace, I 
would not willingly cast dishonor upon its 
founders. My feelings in this respect have 
already been expressed in language which I 
shall be pardoned, I trust, for introducing in 
this place: — 

Oh ! — never may a son of thine, 
Where'er his wandering steps incline, 
Forget the sky which bent above 
His childhood like a dream of love, 



9^ JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The stream beneath the green hill flowing, 
The broad- armed tree above it growing, 
The clear breeze through the foliage blowing ; 
Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn. 
Breathed o'er the brave New England born ; 
Or mark the stranger's jaguar hand 

Disturb the ashes of thy dead — 
The buried glory of a land 

Whose soil with noble blood is red, 

And sanctified in every part, 
Nor feel resentment, like a brand. 

Unsheathing from his fiery heart ! " 

The flow of language in these prose pieces 
is smooth and easy, and the narratives are 
in the same vein and style as the "Twice 
Told Tales," or Irving's stories, only they 
are very much weaker than these, and 
more extravagant and melodramatic in tone. 
"The Midnight Attack" describes the ad- 
venture of Captain Harmon and thirty 
Eastern rang^ers on the banks of the Ken- 
nebec River in June, 1722. A party of 
sleeping Indians are surprised by them and 
all shot dead by one volley of balls. An 
idea of the style of the piece will be obtained 
from the following paragraphs. The men 
are waiting for the signal of Harmon: — 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR. 97 

"^Fire!' he at length exclaimed, as the 
sight of his piece interposed full and dis- 
tinct between his eye and the wild scalp- 
lock of the Indian. ^Fire, and rush on!' 

" The sharp voice of thirty rifles thrilled 
through the heart of the forest. There was 
a groan — a smothered cry — a wild and 
convulsive movement among the sleeping 
Indians; and all again was silent. 

" The rangers sprang forward with their 
clubbed muskets and hunting knives; but 
their work was done. The red men had 
gone to their audit before the Great Spirit; 
and no sound was heard among them save 
the gurgling of the hot blood from their 
lifeless bosoms." 

It was one of the superstitions of the 
New England colonists that the rattlesnake 
had the power of charming or fascinating 
human beings. Whittier's story, " The Rat- 
tlesnake Hunter," is based upon this fact. 
An old man with meagre and wasted form 
is represented as devoting his life to the 
extermination of the reptiles among the 
hills and mountains of Vermont, the in- 
spiring motive of his action being the death 
7' 



98 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

of his young and beautiful wife, many 
years previously, from the bite of a rattle- 
snake. 

^^The Human Sacrifice" relates the es- 
cape of a young white girl from the hands 
of the Matchit-Moodus, an Indian tribe 
formerly dwelling where East Haddam now 
stands. The Indians are frightened from 
their purpose of sacrificing the girl by a 
rumbling noise proceeding from a high hill 
near by. In his note on the story Mr. 
Whittier says: "There is a story prevalent 
in the neighborhood, that a man from Eng- 
land, a kind of astrologer or necromancer, 
undertook to rid the place of the trouble- 
some noises. He told them that the sound 
proceeded from a carbuncle — a precious 
gem, growmg in the bowels of the rock. 
He hired an old blacksmith shop, and 
worked for some time with closed doors, 
and at night. All at once the necro- 
mancer departed, and the strange noises 
ceased. It was supposed he had found the 
precious gem, and had fled with it to his 
native land." This story of the carbuncle 
reminds us of Hawthorne's story on the 
same subject. 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR. 99 

The following remarks are prefixed to 
the poem, "The Unquiet Sleeper": ^^ Some 
fifty or sixty years since an inhabitant of 
, N. H., was found dead at a little dis- 
tance from his dwelling, which he left in 
the morning in perfect health. There is 
a story prevalent among the people of the 
neighborhood that, on the evening of the 
day on which he was found dead, strange 
cries are annually heard to issue from his 
ofrave! I have conversed with some who 
really supposed they had heard them in the 
dead of the night, rising fearfully on the 
autumn wind. They represented the sounds 
to be of a most appalling and unearthly 
nature." 

" The Spectre Ship " is the versification 
of a leo'end related in Mather's "^^ Mao^nalia 
Christi." A ship sailed from Salem, having 
on board " a young man of strange and wild 
appearance, and a girl still younger, and of 
surpassing beauty. She was deadly pale, 
and trembled even while she leaned on the 
arm of her companion," They were sup- 
posed by some to be demons. The vessel 
was lost, and of course soon reappeared as 
a ,';pectre-ship. 



lOO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Mr. Whittier's next work was the editing, 
in 1832, of the "Remains" of his gifted 
friend, J. G. C. Brainard. Students of Whit- 
tier's poems know that for many years the 
genius and writings of Brainard exercised 
a potent influence on his mind. Brainard 
undoubtedly possessed genius. He was at 
one time editor of the Connecticut Mi7i'07\ 
He died young, and his work can be consid- 
ered as hardly more than a promise of future 
excellence. Whittier, in his Introduction 
to the " Remains," shows a nice sense of 
justice, and a delicate reserve in his eulo- 
gistic estimate of his dead brother-poet and 
friend. That he did not falsely attribute to 
him a rare genius will be evident to those 
who read the following portion of Brainard's 
spirited ballad of "The Black Fox": — 

" ' How cold, how beautiful, how bright 
The cloudless heaven above us shines ; 
But 'tis a howling winter's night, — 
'Twould freeze the very forest pines. 

* The winds are up while mortals sleep ; 

The stars look forth while eyes are shut; 
The bolted snow lies drifted deep 

Around our poor and lonely hut. 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR, loi 

' With silent step and listening ear, 

With bow and arrow, dog a.nd gun, 
We'll mark his track, for his prowl we hear, 
Now is our time — come on, come on.' 

O'er many a fence, through many a wood, 
Following the dog's bewildered scent, 

In anxious haste and earnest mood, 
The Indian and the white' man went. 

The gun is cock'd, the bow is bent, 
The dog stands with uplifted paw ; 

And ball and arrow swift are sent, 
Aim'd at the prowler's very jaw. 

— The ball, to kill that fox, is run 

Not in a mould by mortals made ! 
The arrow which that fox should shun 

Was never shap'd from earthly reed ! 

The Indian Druids of the wood 

Know where the fatal arrows grow — 

They spring not by the summer flood, 

They pierce not through the winter snow ! " * 

*Mr. Whittier quotes this fine ballad in Vol. II. p. 243 of 
his prose works, but with numerous changes of punctuation 
and phrase. The differences between the poem as it there 
appears and as it is given in his own edition of Brainard, 
published in 1832, seem to show that he has amended the 
ballad and punctuated it to suit himself, or else has quoted 
it from memory, or at third or fourth remove. It must be 
admitted that the changes are all improvements, however 
they were m.ade. The ballad is quoted above, however, as it 
appears in Brainard's Poems. 



I02 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Whittier's Introduction to Brainard's 
poems reveals a mind matured by much 
reading and thought. We hardly recognize 
in the author and editor of Flartford the shy 
girlish boy we so recently left on the farm 
at Haverhill. There has evidently been a 
good deal of midnight oil burned since then. 

The following sentiments respecting the 
resources and the proper field of the Amer- 
ican poet show that thus early had Whittier 
taken the manly and patriotic resolution to 
find in his native land the chief sources of 
poetic inspiration: "It has been often said 
that the New World is deficient in the ele- 
ments of poetry and romance; that its bards 
must of necessity linger over the classic ruins 
of other lands; and draw their sketches of 
character from foreign sources, and paint 
Nature under the soft beauty of an Eastern 
sky. On the contrary, New England is full 
of romance; and her writers would do well 
to follow the example of Brainard. The 
great forest which our fathers penetrated^ 
the red men, their struggle and their disap- 
pearance, the powwow and the war-dance, 
the savage inroad and the English sally, the 
tale of superstition and the scenes of witch- 



EDITOR AND AUTHOR. I03 

craft, — all these are rich materials of poetry. 
We have, indeed, no classic vale of Tempe, 
no haunted Parnassus, no temple gray v^ith 
years, and hallowed by the gorgeous pagean- 
try of idol worship, no towers and castles 
over whose moonlight ruins gathers ^he 
green pall of the ivy; but we have moun- 
tains pillaring a sky as blue as that which 
bends over classic Olympus, streams as 
brio^ht and beautiful as those of Greece and 
Italy, and forests richer and nobler than 
those w^hich of old were haunted by sylph 
and dryad." 

It is easy to see here a foreshadowing of 
"Mogg Megone," "The Bridal of Penna- 
cook," the " Supernaturalism of New Eng- 
land," and a hundred poems and ballads of 
Whittier's founded on native themes. The 
sentiments in the quotation just made remind 
one of Emerson's " Nature," the preface of 
Whitman to his first portentous quarto, 
" Leaves of Grass," and Wordsworth's essay 
on the nature of the poetic art. But how- 
ever laudable was the Quaker poet's resolve 
to choose indigenous subjects, it cannot be 
said that either he or Bryant attained to 
fnore than an, indigeneity of theme. In 



.I04 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

form and style they are imitative. Emerson 
and Whitman are our only purely original 
poets. 

Whittier was editor of the New England 
Weekly Review for about eighteen months, 
at the end of which time he returned to 
the farm at Haverhill, and engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits for the next five or six 
years. In 183 1 or 1832 he published "Moll 
Pitcher," a tale of the Witch of Nahant. 
This youthful poem seems to have com- 
pletely disappeared, and Mr. Whittier will 
no doubt be devoutly thankful that the 
writer has been unable to procure a copy. 



WHIT TIER THE REFORMER, lO^ 



CHAPTER V. 

WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 

*^ God said : ' Break thou these yokes ; undo 
These heavy burdens. I ordain 
A ivork to last thy -whole life through^ 
A ministry of strife and fain. 

* Forego thy dreams of ''ettered ease.. 

Put thou the scholar'' s promise by. 
The rights of man are more than these." 

He heard, and ansxvered: '■Here am //'" 

Whittier, Sumner. 

On New Year's day of 183 1 William 
liloyd Garrison issued the first number of 
the Liberator from his little attic room, 
No. 6 Merchants' Hall, Boston. Its clear 
bugle-notes sounded the onset of reform 
and the death-knell of slavery. It called 
for the buckling on of moral armor. Its 
words were the touchstone of wills, the 
shibboleth of souls. Cowards and time- 
servers quickly ranged themselves on one 
side, and heroes on the other. Before 
young Whittier, — editor, litterateur^ and 



106 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

poet, — a career full of brilliant promise had 
opened up at Hartford. But through the 
high chambers of his soul the voice of duty 
rang in solemn and imperative tones. He 
heard and obeyed. The cost was counted, 
and his resolution taken. Upon his brow 
he placed the lustrous fire-wreath of the 
vci2xtyXy well assured of his power to endure 
unflinchingly to the end its sharpest pains. 
It was the most momentous act of his life; 
it formed the keystone in the arch of his 
destinies. 

The first decided anti-slavery step taken 
by him was the publication of his fiery 
philippic, "Justice and Expediency." About 
this time also he began the writing of his 
stirring anti-slavery poems, many of them 
full of pathos, fierce invective, cutting irony 
and satire, — stirring the blood like a 
trumpet-call, giving impulse and enthu- 
siasm to the despised and half-despairing 
Abolitionists of that day, and becoming a 
part of the ver}^ religion of thousands of 
households throughout the land. 

It is almost impossible for those who 
were not participants in the anti-slavery 
conflict, or who have not read histories 



WHIT TIER THE REFORMER, 1 07 

and memoirs of the struggle, to realize 
the deep opprobrium that attached to the 
word "Abolitionist." To avow one's self 
such meant in many cases suspicion, os- 
tracism, hunger, blows, and sometimes 
death. It meant, in short, self-renunciation 
and social martyrdom. All this Whittier 
gladly took upon himself; and he knew that 
it was a long struggle upon which he was 
entering. As he says in one of his poems, 
he was 

" Called from dream and song, 
Thank God ! so early to a strife so long, 
That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair 
Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare 
On manhood's temples." 

That the martyrdom was a severe one to 
all who took up the cross goes without say- 
ing. Mr. Whittier remarked to the writer 
that it was at some sacrifice of his ambi- 
tion and plans for the future that he decided 
to throw in his lot with the opponents of 
slavery. He knew that it meant the anni- 
hilation of his hopes of literar}^ preferment, 
and the exclusion of his articles from the 
pages of magazines and newspapers. "For 
twenty years," said he, "my name would 



I08 ■ JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

have injured the circulation of any of the 
literary or political journals of the count:^y." 

When Whittier joined the ranks of the 
despised faction, Garrison had been im- 
prisoned and fined in Baltimore for his 
arraignment of the slave traffic; Benjamin 
Lundy had been driven from the same city 
by threats of imprisonment and personal 
outrage; Prudence Crandall was waging 
her battle with the Philistinism of Canter- 
bury, Conn.; and the Legislature of Georgia 
had offered a reward of five thousand dollars 
for "the arrest, prosecution, and trial to 
conviction under the laws of the State, of 
the editor or publisher of a certain paper 
called The Liberator^ published in the 
town of Boston, and State of Massachu- 
setts." 

But it is not within the province of this 
biography to give an exhaustive 7xsume of 
the anti-slavery conflict, but only to speak 
of such of its episodes as were especially 
participated in by Mr. Whittier. How 
tailor John Woolman became a life-long 
itinerant preacher of his mild Quaker gospel 
of freedom; how honest saddler Lundy 
left his leather hammering, and walked his 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. ■ IO9 

ten thousand miles, carrying his types and 
column-rules with him, and printing his 
"Genius of Universal Emancipation" as he 
went; in what way and to what extent the 
labors and writings of Lucretia Mott, 
Samuel J. May, Lydia Maria Child, George 
Thompson, James G. Birney, and Gerrit 
Smith helped on the noble cause, — to all 
these things only allusion can be made. 
For a full account of those perilous times 
one must go to the pages of Henry Wilson's 
"History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave 
Power," and to the fascinating "Recollec- 
tions" of Samuel J. May. Let us now 
return to Whittier and consider his own 
writings, labors, and adventures in the ser- 
vice of the cause. 

It was in the spring of 1833 that he pub- 
lished at his own expense "Justice and 
Expediency; or. Slavery Considered with a 
view to its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, 
Abolition." [Haverhill : C. P. Thayer and 
Co.] It is a polemical paper, full of excla- 
mation points and italicized and capitalized 
sentences. The hyperbole speaks well for 
the author's heart, but betrays his juvenility. 
He shrieks like a temperance lecturer or a 



no JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER. 

stump politician. The pamphlet, however, 
shows diligent and systematic study of the 
entire literature of the subject. Every state- 
ment is fortified by quotation or reference. 
He enumerates six reasons why the Afri- 
can Colonization Society's schemes were 
unworthy of good men's support, and but- 
tresses up his theses by citations from the 
official literature of his opponents. A thor- 
ough familiarity with slavery in other lands 
and times is also manifested. As a speci- 
men of the style of the book the following 
will serve: — 

"But, it may be said that the miserable 
victims of the System have our sympathies, 

"Sympathy! — the sympathy of the Priest 
and the Levite, looking on, and acknowl- 
edging, but holding itself aloof from mortal 
suffering. Can such hollow sympathy reach 
the broken of heart, and does the blessing 
of those who are ready to perish answer it? 
Does it hold back the lash from the slave, 
or sweeten his bitter bread? 

"Oh, my heart is sick — my very soul is 
weary of this sympathy — -this heartless 
mockery of feeling. . . , 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. Ill 

"No — let the Truth on this subject- 
undisguised, naked, terrible as it is, stand out 
before us. Let us no longer seek to cover 
it — let us no longer strive to forget it — 
let us no more dare to palliate it." 

In his sketch of Nathaniel P. Rogers, the 
anti-slavery editor, Whittier remarks inci- 
dentally that the voice of Rogers was one 
of the few which greeted him with words 
of encouragement and sympathy at the 
time of the publication of his ^^ Justice and. 
Expediency." ^ 

On the fourth day of December, 1833, the 
Philadelphia Convention for the formation 
of the American Anti-slavery Society held 
its first sitting; Beriah Green, President, 
Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, Sec- 
retaries. This assembly, if not so famous 
as that which framed the Declaration of In- 
dependence in the same city some two gen- 
erations previously, was at any rate as worthy 
of fame and respect as its illustrious prede- 

*" He gave us a kind word of approval," sajs Whittier, 
"and invited us to his mountain home, on the banks of the 
Pemigewasset, an invitation which, two jears afterwards, we 
accepted." 



1 1 2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

cesser. A deep solemnity and high conse- 
cration filled the heart of every man and 
woman in that little band. Heart answered 
unto heart in glowing sympath}^ They did 
their work like men inspired. Perfect una- 
nimity prevailed. They were too eagerly 
engaged to adjourn for dinner, and "baskets 
of crackers and pitchers of cold water sup- 
plied all the bodily refreshment." Among 
those who were present and spoke was 
Lucretia Mott, " a beautiful and graceful wo- 
man/' says Whittier, " in the prime of life, 
with a face beneath her plain cap as finely 
intellectual as that of Madame Roland." 
She " offered some wise and valuable sug- 
gestions, in a clear sweet voice, the charm 
of which I have never forgotten." 

A committee, of which Whittier was a 
member, with William Lloyd Garrison as 
chairman, was appointed to draw up a Dec- 
laration of Principles. Garrison sat up all 
night, in the small attic of a colored man, 
to draft this Declaration. The two other 
members of the committee, calling in the 
gray dawn of a December day, found him 
putting the last touches to this famous 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. II5 

paper, while his lamp burned on unheeded 
into the daylight. His draft was accepted 
almost without amendment by the Conven- 
tion, and, after it had been engrossed on 
parchment, was signed by the sixty-two 
members present."^ 

In the^ Atlantic Monthly for February, 
1874, Mr. Whittier has given an interesting 
account of the Convention. Some of his 
pictures are so graphic that they shall here 
be given in his own words : — 

" In the gra}" twilight of a chill da}^ of 
late November, forty years ago, a dear 
friend of mine residing in Boston, made his 
appearance at the old farm-house in East 
Haverhill. He had been deputed by the 
Abolitionists of the city, William L. Garri- 
son, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, to in- 
form me of my appointment as a delegate to 
the Convention about to be held in Phila- 
delphia for the formation of an American 
Anti-slavery Society; and to urge upon me 
the necessity of my attendance. 

* Twentj-one of these persons were Qtiakers, as Mr. Whit- 
tier and the writer proved by actual count of the names on 
Mr. Whittier's fac-simile copy of the Declaration. 



Il6 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Few words of persuasion, however, were 
needed. I was unused to travelling; my 
life had been spent on a secluded farm; and 
the journey, mostly by stage-coach, at that 
time was really a formidable one. More- 
over the few abolitionists were everywhere 
spoken against, their persons threatened, 
and, in some instances, a price set on their 
heads by Southern legislators. Pennsylva- 
nia was on the borders of slavery, and it 
needed small effort of imagination to pict- 
ure to oneself the breaking up of the Con- 
vention and maltreatment of its members. 
This latter consideration I do not think 
weighed much with me, although I w^as 
better prepared for serious danger than for 
anything like personal indignity. I had 
read Governor Trumbull's description of 
the tarring and feathering of his hero Mac- 
Fingal, when after the application of the 
melted tar, the feather-bed was ripped open 
and shaken over him, until 

Not Maia's son with wings for ears, 
Such plumes about his visage wears, 
Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers 
Such superfluity of feathers,' 

and I confess I was quite unwilling to un- 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. HJ 

dergo a martyrdom which my best friends 
could scarcely refrain from laughing at. 
But a summons like that of Garrison's 
bugle-blast could scarcely be unheeded by 
one who, from birth and education, held 
fast the traditions of that earlier abolition- 
ism which, under the lead of Benezet and 
Wool man, had effaced from the Society of 
Friends every vestige of slaveholding. I 
had thrown myself, with a young man's 
fervid enthusiasm, into a movement which 
commended itself to my reason and con- 
science, to my love of country, and my sense 
of duty to God and my fellow-men. My 
first venture in authorship was the publica- 
tion, at my own expense, in the spring of 
1833, of a pamphlet entitled ^Justice and 
Expediency,' ^' on the moral and political 
evils of slavery, and the duty of emancipa- 
tion. Under such circumstances, I could 
not hesitate, but prepared at once for my 
journey. It was necessary that I should 
start on the morrow, and the intervening 

* Mr. Whittier here made a slip of memory. His first work 
was "Legends of New England," as he himself testifies, in 
his own handwriting, in a memorandum sent to the New 
England Historic-Genealogical Society. 



I 1 8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

time, with a small allowance for sleep, was 
spent in providing for the care of the farm 
and homestead during my absence." 

Mr. Whittier proceeds to tell of his jour- 
ne}^ to the Quaker City, and of the organiza- 
tion and work of the Convention. The fol- 
lowing pen-portraits are too valuable to be 
omitted: — 

"Looking over the assembl}^, I noticed 
that it was mainly composed of compara- 
tively young men, some in middle age, 
and a few beyond that period. They were 
nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to 
comfort rather than elegance. Man}^ of the 
faces turned toward me wore a look of ex- 
pectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all 
had the earnestness which might be ex-« 
pected of men engaged in an enterprise 
beset with difficulty, and perhaps with peril. 
The fine intellectual head of Garrison, pre- 
maturely bald, was conspicuous; the sunny- 
faced young man at his side, in whom all 
the beatitudes seemed to find expression, 
was Samuel J. May, mingling in his veins 
the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys; 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 119 

a man so exceptionally pure and large- 
hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that 
he could be faithful to truth and duty with- 
out making an enemy. 

The de'il wad look into his face, 
And swear he could na wrang him.' 

That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle- 
faced, upon whose somewhat' martial figure 
the Quaker coat seemed a little out of place, 
was Lindley Coates, known in all Eastern 
Pennsylvania as a stern enemy of slavery; 
that slight, eager man, intensely alive in 
every feature and gesture, was Thomas 
Shipley, who for thirty years had been the 
protector of the free colored people of Phil- 
adelphia, and whose name was whispered 
reverently in the slave cabins of Maryland 
as the friend of the black man, — one of a 
class peculiar to old Quakerism, who, in do- 
ing what they felt to be duty, and walking 
as the Light within guided them, knew no 
fear and shrank from no sacrifice. Braver 
men the world has not known. Beside him, 
differing in creed but united with him in 
works of love and charity, sat Thomas 
Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends, 



I20 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

fresh from his farm in Lancaster County, 
dressed in plainest homespun, his tall form 
surmounted by a shock of unkempt hair, 
the odd obliquity of his vision contrasting 
strongly with the clearness and directness 
of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the 
young professor of a Western college, who 
had lost his place by his bold advocacy of 
freedom, with a look of sharp concentration, 
in keeping with an intellect keen as a Da- 
mascus blade, closely watched the proceed- 
ings through his spectacles, opening his 
mouth only to speak directly to the purpose. 
In front of me, awakening pleas- 
ant associations of the old homestead in 
Merrimack valley, sat my first school- 
teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and 
worthy antiquarian and historian of New- 
bury. A few spectators, mostly of the 
Hicksite division of Friends, were present 
in broad-brims and plain bonnets, among 
them Esther Moore and Lucretia Mott." 

The year 1834 was passed by Whittier 
quietly on the farm at East Haverhill. In 
April of this year the first anti-slavery soci- 
ety was organized in Haverhill, with John 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 121 

G. Whittier as corresponding secretary. 
Not long after a female anti-slavery society 
was organized in the same town. The pro- 
slavery feeling in Haverhill was as bitter as 
in other places. 

One Sabbath afternoon in August, 1835, 
the Rev. Samuel J. May occupied the pulpit 
of the First Parish Society in Haverhill, 
and in the evening attempted to give an 
anti-slaver}^ lecture in the Christian Union 
Chapel, having been invited to do so by Mr. 
Whittier. In his " Recollections of the 
Anti-Slavery Conflict" (p. 152), Mr. May 
says: — 

" I had spoken about fifteen minutes when 
the most hideous outcries and yells, from a 
crowd of men who had surrounded the 
house, startled us, and then came heavy 
missiles ao^ainst the doors and blinds of the 
windows. I persisted in speaking for a few 
minutes, hoping the blinds and doors were 
strong enough to stand the siege. But pres- 
ently a heavy stone broke through one of 
the blinds, shattered a pane of glass, and fell 
upon the head of a lady sitting near the cen- 
tre of the hall. She uttered a shriek, and 
fell bleedino^ into the arms of her sister. 



122 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The panic-stricken audience rose en masse^ 
and began a rush for the doors." 

Mr. May succeeded in quieting the fears 
of the audience, and himself escaped through 
the crowd of infuriated ruffians without by 
walking between two ladies, one of thern 
the sister of Mr. Whittier and the other the 
daughter of a wealthy and determined citi- 
zen of the place, who, it was well known, 
would take summary vengeance for any 
disrespect shown to his daughter. It was 
well that the audience dispersed when it 
did, since a loaded cannon was being drawn 
to the spot by the furious mob. 

This year, 1835, ^^^ ^ year of mobs. On 
the very same evening that Mr. May was 
mobbed in Haverhill, Mr. Whittier and his 
English friend, the orator George Thomp- 
son, were treated in a similar manner in 
Concord, N. H. Whether an account of 
the Concord mob has been elsewhere pub- 
lished or not the author cannot say, but the 
story given here is as he had it from the lips 
of Mr. Whittier himself. 

"Oh! we had a dreadful night of it," he 
said. The inhabitants had heard that an 
Abolition meeting was to be held in the 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 1 23 

town, and that the arch anarchist, George 
Thompson, was to speak. So on that Sab- 
bath evening they were on the alert, an angry 
mob some five hundred strono^. Mr. Whit- 
tier, knowing nothing of their state of mind, 
started down the street with a friend: the 
mob surrounded them, thinking that he was 
Thompson. His friend explained to them 
that he was Mr. Whittier. "Oh!" the}: 
exclaimed, " so you are the one who is with 
Thompson, are you ?'^ and forthwith they 
began to assail the two men v/ith sticks and 
stones. Mr. Whittier said that both he and 
his friend were hurt, but escaped with their 
lives by taking refuge in the house of a 
friend named Kent, who was not an Aboli- 
tionist himself, but was a man of honor and 
bravery. He barred his door, and told the 
mob that they should have Whittier only 
over his dead body. 

In the course of the evening Mr. Whittier 
learned that the house in which Thompson 
was staying was surrounded by the mob. 
Becoming anxious, he borrowed a hat, sal- 
lied out among the crowd, and succeeded 
in reaching his friend. The noise and vio- 
lence of the mob increased; a cannon was 



124 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

brought, and at one time the little band in 
the house feared they might suffer violence. 
"We did not much fear death," said Mr. 
Whittier, " but we did dread gross personal 
indignities." 

It was fortunately a bright moonlight 
night, suitable for travelling, and about one 
o'clock the two friends escaped by driving 
off rapidly in their horse and buggy. They 
did not know tlie road to Haverhill, but 
were directed by their friends with all pos- 
sible minuteness. Three miles away, also, 
there was the house of an anti-slavery man, 
and they obtained further directions there. 
Some time after sunrise they stopped at a 
wayside inn to bait their horse, and get a 
bite of breakfast for themselves. While 
they wxre at table the landlord said, — 

" They've been having a h — 1 of a time 
down at Haverhill." 

"How is that?" 

" Oh, one of them d — d Abolitionists was 
lecturin' there; he had been invited to the 
town by a young fellow named Whittier; 
but they made it pretty hot for him, and I 
guess neither he nor Whittier will be in a 
hurry to repeat the thing." 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 1 25 

^^ What kind of a fellow is this Whittier?" 
^^Oh, he's an ignorant sort of fellow; he 
don't know much." 

" And who is this Thompson they're talk- 
ing about? " 

^^ Why, he's a man sent over here by the 
British to make trouble in our government." 
As the two friends were stepping into the 
buggy, Mr. Whittier, with one foot on the 
step, turned and said to the host, who was 
standing by with several tavern loafers: — 
"You've been talking about Thompson 
and Whittier. This is Mr. Thompson, and 
I am Whittier. Good morning." 

"And jumping into the buggy," said 
the poet, with a twinkle in his eye, "we 
whipped up, and stood not on the order of 
our going." As for the host he stood with 
open mouth, being absolutely tongue-tied 
with astonishment. " And for all I know," 
said the narrator, " he's standing there still 
with his mouth open." 

Mr. Thompson was secreted at the Whit- 
tier farm-house in Haverhill for two weeks 
after this affair. 

Some two months after the disgraceful 



126 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

scenes just described occurred the mobbing 
of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. He 
had gone in the evening to deliver a lecture 
before the Female Anti-Slavery Society. 
A furious mob of "gentlemen of property 
and standing" surrounded the building. 
Mr. Garrison took refuge in a carpenter's 
shop in the rear of the hall, but v^as vio- 
lently seized, let down from a window by a 
rope, and dragged by the mob 'to the City 
Halt. Mr. Whittier was staying at the 
house of Rev. Samuel J. May. His sister 
had gone to the lecture, and Mr. Whittier. 
on hearing of the disturbance, had fears for 
her safety, and went out to seek her. He 
said to the writer that when he reached the 
City Hall he saw before him the best 
dressed mob imaginable. Presently he 
heard a cry, "They've got him!" After a 
short, sharp scuffle Garrison was got into a 
carriage by the police, and taken to the 
Leverett Street jail, as the only place where 
he could be safe that night in Boston. Mr. 
Whittier and Mr. May immediately went 
down to the jail to see him. Garrison said 
that he could not say, with Paul, that he was 
dwelling in his own hired house, and so he 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 12 J 

could not ask them to stay all night with 
him! His coat was not entirely gone, but 
was pretty badly torn. He was at first a 
good deal agitated by the affair, but when 
they left him he had become calm and as- 
sured. On the same evening, the mob 
threatened to make an attack upon Mr. 
May's house. Mr. Whittier got his sister 
Elizabeth safely bestowed for the night in 
the dwelling of another friend. He and 
Mr. May passed a sleepless night, and at 
one time half thought that, for safety's sake, 
they should have stayed in the jail with Gar- 
rison. However, they were not molested. 

It is a remarkable testimony to the esteem 
in which Mr. Whittier must have been held 
by the citizens of Haverhill that, notwith- 
standing their bitter hatred of Abolitionism, 
they elected him their representative to the 
State Legislature in 1835, and again in 1836. 
In 1837 h^ declined re-election. In the 
legislative documents for 1835 ^^ figures as 
a member of the standing committee on 
engrossed bills. His name does not appear 
in the State records for 1836: it was un- 
doubtedly owing to his secretarial duties, 
mentioned below, that he was unr.ble to 



128 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

take his seat as a member of the Legislature 
in the second year of his election. 

In 1836 Whittier published " Mogg Me- 
gone," a poem on an episode in Indian life. 
It will be reviewed, with the rest of his 
poems, in the second part of this volume. 
In the same year he was appointed Secre- 
tar}^ of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 
and removed to Philadelphia. In 1838- 
39, while in that city, he edited a paper 
which he named the Pennsylvania Free- 
man. It had formerly been edited by 
Benjamin Lund}^, under the title of the Na- 
tional Enqiiii'er. The office of the Penn- 
sylvania Freeman was in 1838 sacked and 
burned by a mob. It was about the same 
time that Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia 
was burned to the ground by the citizens, 
on the very day after its dedication. Mr. 
Whittier had read an original poem on that 
occasion. The hall had been built at con- 
siderable sacrifice by the lovers of freedom, 
in order that one place at least might be 
open for free discussion. And it was just 
in order that it might not be used thus that 
it was burned by the guilty-thoughted mob. 
The keys had been given to the mayor, but 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. I 29 

neither he nor the police interfered to pre- 
vent the atrocious deed. 

In 1837 Mr. Whittier edited, and wrote 
a preface for, the ^^ Letters of John Quincy 
Adams to his Constituents." These stirring 
letters of Mr. Adams were called forth by 
the attacks that had been made on him by 
members of Cono:ress for defendino- the rio-ht 
of negroes to petition the Government. Mr. 
Whittier, in his introductory remarks, speaks 
of the " Letters " as follows : — 

"Their sarcasm is Junius-like, cold, 
keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, 
and eloquent appeal, the}^ will bear compari- 
son with O'Connell's celebrated letters to 
the Reformers of Great Britain. ... It 
will be seen that, in the orreat strueforle for 
and against the Right of Petition, an account 
of which is given in the following pages, 
their author stood in a great measure alone, 
and unsupported by his northern colleagues. 
On "^his gray, discrowned head' the en- 
tire fury of slaveholding arrogance and 
wrath was expended. He stood alone,— 
beating back, with his aged and single arm, 
the tide which would have borne down and 
9 



130 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

overwhelmed a less sturdy and determined 

spirit." 

In the same year (1837) Mr. Whittier 
edited a pamphlet called "Views of Slavery 
and Emancipation," taken from Harriet 
Martineau's "Society in America." The 
whole subject of slavery is canvassed by 
Miss Martineau in the most searching and 
judicial manner. 

In closing this account of our author's 
anti-slavery labors, we may bestow a word 
on the attitude assumed toward the Aboli- 
tion movement by the Quakers as a sect. 
Through the labors of John Woolman, Ben- 
jamin Lundy, Anthony Benezet, and others, 
they had early been brought to see the 
wickedness of slaveholding, and in 1780 had 
succeeded in entirely ridding their denomi- 
nation of the wrong. They not only eman- 
cipated their slaves, but remunerated them 
for their past services. Indeed, their record 
in this respect is unique for its fine ideal 
devotion to exact justice. They were the 
first religious body in the world to remove 
the pollution of slavery from their midst. 
But the cautious, acquisitive, peace-loving 



WHITTIER THE REFORMER. 131 

Quakers seemed content to rest here, satis- 
fied with having cleared their own skirts 
of wrong. They could net see the good 
side of the Abolition movement. They 
were scandalized by the violence and fanati- 
cism of many Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier 
felt aggrieved by this attitude of the Friends, 
but did not on that account break with the 
denomination, or abandon the religion of his 
fathers. In 1868 he wrote a? follows to the 
New Bedford Standard, which had spoken 
of him in an article on Thomas A. Greene: 
"My object in referring to the article in the 
paper was mainly to correct a statement re- 
garding myself, viz.: That in consequence 
of the opposition of the Society of Friends 
to the anti-slavery movement, I did not for 
years attend their meetings. This is not 
true. From my youth up, whenever my 
health permitted, I have been a constant at- 
tendant of our meetings for religious worship. 
This is true, however, that after our meeting- 
houses were denied by the yearly meeting 
for anti-slavery purposes, I did not feel it in 
my way, for some years, to attend the annual 
meeting at Newport. From a feeling of 
duty I protested against that decision when 



132 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

it was made, but was given to understand 
pretty distinctly that there was no ^weight' 
in my words. It was a hard day for reform- 
ers; some stifled their convictions; others, 
i/iot adding patience to their faith, allowed 
themselves to be worried out of the Society. 
Abolitionists holding office were very gener- 
ally dropped out,' and the ark of the church 
staggered on with no profane anti-slavery 
hands upon it." 



AMESBURY. 133 



CHAPTER VI. 

AMESBURY. 

AVTER the sacking and burning of the 
iivBtice of the Pennsylvania Freeman^ Whit- 
tier returned to Haverhill, and soon after 
(in 1840) he sold the old farm and removed 
with his mother to Amesbury, a small town 
some nine miles nearer the sea than Haver- 
hill . It is a rural town of over three thou- 
sand inhabitants, and contains nothing of 
note except the poet Whittier. The busi- 
ness of the place is the manufacture of wool- 
len and cotton goods, and of carriages. The 
landscape is rugged and picturesque. The 
town covers a sloping hillside that stretches 
down to the Merrimack. Across this river 
rises a high hill, crowned with orchards and 
meadows. In summer time a sweet and 
quiet air reigns; in the place. There are 
old vine-covered houses, grassy lawns, cool 
crofts, and sunken orchards; bees are hum- 



I 34 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ming, birds singing, and here and there 
through the trees slender columns of blue 
wood-smoke float upward in airy evanes- 
cence. Mr. Whittier's residence is on Friend 
Street, and not far beyond, on the same 
street, or rather in the delta formed by the 
meeting of two streets, stands the Friends' 
Meeting-House, where the poet has been an 
attendant nearly all his life: — 

" For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, 
And holy day, and solemn psalm ; 
For me, the silent reverence where 
My brethren gather, slow and calm." . 

This old meeting-house is alluded to by 
the poet in "Abram Morrison," a fine humor- 
ous poem published in " The King's Mis- 
sive " (1881). We there read how — 

" On calm and fair First Days 
Rattled down our one-horse chaise 
Through the blossomed apple-boughs 
To the old, brown meeting-house." 

Whittier's house is a plain, white-painted 
structure, standing at the corner of two 
streets, and having in front of it numerous 
forest trees, chiefly maple. Since 1876 the 




THE WHITTIER HOUSE, AMESBURY, MASS. 



AMESBURY, 1 37 

poet has passed only a part of each year at 
Amesbur}^, his other home being Oak Knoll 
in Danvers, where he resides with distant 
relatives. 

The study at Amesbury of course pos- 
sesses great interest for us as the place 
where most of the poet's finest lyrics have 
been written. It is a very cosey little study, 
and is entered by one door from within and 
another from without. The upper half of the 
outer door is of glass. This door is at the end 
of the left-hand porch shown in the view on 
page 125. The two windows in the study 
look out upon a long strip of yard in the 
rear of the house, — very pretty and quiet, 
and filled with pear-trees and other trees and 
vines. Upon one side of the room are 
shelves holding five or six hundred well- 
used volumes. Among them are to be no- 
ticed Charles Reade's novels and the poems 
of Robert Browning.. A side-shelf is com- 
pletely filled with a small blue and gold 
edition of the poets. On the w^alls hang 
oil paintings of views on the Merrimack 
River and other Essex County scenes, in- 
cluding Mr. Whittier's birthplace. In one 



138 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

corner is a handsome writing-desk, littered 
with papers and letters. Upon the hearth 
of the Franklin stove, high andirons smile a 
Preside welcome from their burnished brass 
knobs. Indeed, everything in the room is 
as neat and cosey as the wax cell of a honey- 
bee. And over all is shed the genial glow 
of the gentlest, tenderest nature in all the 
land. 

In the autumn of 1844 was written "The 
Stranger in Lowell," a series of light 
sketches suggested by personal experiences. 
The style of these essays reminds one of 
that of "Twice Told Tales," but it is not 
so pure. The thought is developed too 
rhetorically, and the essays betray the limi- 
tations attending the life of a recluse. But 
these sketches are interesting as exhibitions 
of the cjrowth of the author toward this 
peculiar form of essay-writing, and are 
valuable on that account. 

In 1847 James G. Birney's anti-slavery 
paper, The Philanthropist^ published in 
Cincinnati, was merged with the National 
Era^ of Washington, D. C, with Dr. Gam- 



AMESBURY. 1 39 

aliel Bailey as managing editor, and John 
G. Whittier as associate or corresponding 
editor. Dr. Bailey had previously helped 
edit The Philanthropist, Both papers were 
treated to mobocratic attacks. The Era be- 
came an important organ of the Abolition 
party in Washington. To it Mr. Whittier 
contributed his ^^Old Portraits and Modern 
Sketches " as well as other reform papers. 

In the same year (1847) our author pub- 
lished his "Supernaturalism of New Eng- 
land." [New York and London; Wiley 
and Putnam.] This pleasant little volume 
shows a marked advance upon Whittier's 
previous prose work. In its nine chapters 
he has preserved a number of oral legends 
and interesting superstitions of the farmer- 
folk of the Merrimack region. Parts of the 
work have been quoted elsewhere in this 
volume. One of the chapters closes with 
the following fine passage: — 

"The witches of Father Baxter and ^the 
Black Man' of Cotton Mather have van- 
ished; belief in them is no longer possible 
on the part of sane men. But this mysterious 



I40 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

universe, through which, half veiled in its 
own shadow, our dim little planet is wheel- 
ing, with its star-worlds and thought-weary- 
ing spaces, remains. Nature's mighty mir- 
acle is still over and around us; and hence 
awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be 
the inheritance of humanity: still are there 
beautiful repentances and holy death-beds, 
and still over the soul's darkness and confu- 
sion rises star-like the great idea of duty. 
By higher and better influences than the 
poor spectres of superstition man must 
henceforth be taught to reverence the Invis- 
ible, and, in the consciousness of his own 
weakness and sin and sorrow, to lean with 
childlike trust on the wisdom and mere}' of 
an overruling Providence." 

In 1849 ^^- Whittier collected and pub- 
lished his anti-slavery poems, under the title 
^^Voices of Freedom." The year 1850 
marks a new era in his poetical career. 
He published at that time his "Songs of 
Labor," — a volume which showed that his 
mind had become calmed by time, and was 
now capable of interesting itself in other 
than reform subjects. 



AMESBURY. 



141 



There is not much of outward incident 
and circumstance to record of the quiet 
poetical years passed since 1840 at Ames- 
bury and Danvers. Ahnost every year or 
two a new volume of poems has been 
issued, each one establishing on a firmer 
foundation the Quaker Poet's reputation as 
a creator of sweet and melodious lyrical 
poetry. 

In 1868 an institution called ^^Whittier 
College " was opened at Salem, Henry 
County, Iowa. It was founded in honor 
of the poet, and is conducted in accord- 
ance with the principles of the Society of 
Friends. 

In 187 1 Whittier edited "Child-Life: A 
Collection of Poems," by various home 
and foreign authors. In the same year he 
edited, with a long introduction, the "Journal 
of John Woolman." 

The name John Woolman is not widely 
known to persons of the present generation; 
and yet, as Whittier says, it was this humble 
Quaker reformer of New Jersey who did 
more than any one else to inspire all the 
great modern movements for the emancipa- 
tion of slaves, first in the West Indies, then 



142 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

in the United States, and in Russia. Warner 
Mifflin, Jean Pierre Brissot, Thomas Clark- 
son, Stephen Grellet, William Allen, and 
Benjamin Lundy, — all these philanthropists 
owed much of their impulse to labor for 
the freedom of the slave to humble John 
Woolman. His journal or autobiography 
was highly praised by Charles Lamb, Ed- 
ward Irving, Crabb Robinson, and others. 
^^The style is that of a man unlettered, but 
with natural refinement and delicate sense 
of fitness, the purity of whose heart enters 
into his lan^uaofe." 

Woolman was born in Northampton, 
West Jersey, in 1720. One day, in the 
year 1842, while clerk in a store in the vil- 
lage of Mount Holly, township of Northamp- 
ton, N. J., he was asked by his employer 
to make out the bill of sale of a negro. He 
drew up the instrument, but his conscience 
was awakened, and some years after he 
began his life-work as a pedestrian anti- 
slavery preacher. He refused to ride in, or 
have letters sent him by, the stage-coaches, 
because of the cruelty exercised toward 
the horses by the drivers. Neither would 
he accept hospitality from those who kept 



AMESBURY, 



143 



slaves, always paying either the owners or 
the slaves for his entertainment. Woolman 
was most gentle and kind* in his appeals to 
slave-owners, and rarely met with any vio- 
lent remonstrance. Much of his work was 
within the limits of his own sect, and Mr. 
Whittier's introduction gives a valuable and 
succinct historical ixsiome of the steps 
taken by the Friends to rid their sect of the 
stigma of slaveholding. 

Mount Holly, in Woolman's day, saj^s 
Whittier, "was almost entirely a settle- 
ment of Friends. A very few of the 
old houses with their quaint stoops or 
porches are left. That occupied by John 
Woolman was a small, plain, two-story 
structure, with two windows in each story 
in front, a four-barred fence enclosing the 
grounds, with the trees he planted and 
loved to cultivate. The house was not 
painted, but whitewashed. The name of 
the place is derived from the highest hill in 
the county, rising two hundred feet above 
the sea, and commanding a view of a rich 
and level country of cleared farms and 
woodlands." 



144 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Very amusing is the picture given b}^ Mr. 
Whittier of the eccentric Benjamin La}^, 
once a member of the Society of Friends in 
England, and afterward an inhabitant for 
some time of the West Indies, whence he 
was driven away on account of the violence 
and extravagance of his denunciations of 
slavery. He was a contemporary of Wool- 
man. He lived in a cave near Philadelphia, 
as a sort of Jonah or Elijah, prophesying 
woe against the city on account of its par- 
ticipation in the crime of slavery. He wore 
clothes made of vegetable fibre, and ate onl}^ 
vegetable food. "Issuing from his cave, on 
his mission of preaching ^ deliverance to the 
captive,' he was in the habit of visiting the 
various meetings for worship and bearing 
his testimony against slavelrolders, greatly 
to their disgust and indignation. On one 
occasion he entered the Market Street 
Meeting, and a leading Friehd requested 
some one to take him out. A burly black- 
smith volunteered to do it, leading him to 
the gate and thrusting him out with such 
force that he fell into the gutter of the 
street. There he lay until the meeting 
closed, telling the bystanders that he did 



AMESBURY. 145 

not feel free to rise himself. ^ Let those 
who cast me here raise me up. It is their 
business, not mine.' 

"His personal appearance was in remark- 
able keeping with his eccentric life. A 
figure only four and a half feet high, hunch- 
backed, with projecting chest, legs small 
and uneven, arms longer than his legs; a 
huge head, showing only beneath the enor- 
mous white hat large, solemn eyes and a 
prominent nose; the rest of his face covered 
with a snowy semicircle of beard falling 
low on his breast, — a figure to recall the 
old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold. 
Such was the irrepressible prophet who 
troubled the Israel of slaveholding Qua- 
kerism, clinging like a rough chestnut-burr 
to the skirts of its respectability, and set- 
tling like a pertinacious gad-fly on the sore 
places of its conscience. 

"On one occasion, while the annual meet- 
ing was in session at Burlington, N. J., in 
the midst of the solemn silence of the great 
assembly, the unwelcome figure of Benja- 
min Lay, wrapped in his long white over- 
coat, was seen passing up the aisle. Stop- 
ping midway, he exclaimed, ^You slave- 

10 



146 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

holders! Why don't you throw off your 
Quaker coats as I do mine, and show your- 
selves as you are?' Casting off as he 
spoke his outer garment, he disclosed to the 
astonished assembly a military coat under- 
neath, and a sword dangling at his heels. 
Holding in one hand a large book, he drew 
his sword with the other. ^ In the sight of 
God,' he cried, ^you are as guilty as if 
you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I 
do this book!' suiting the action to the 
word, and piercing a small bladder filled 
with the juice of poke-weed {^j)hytolacca 
decandrd)^ v/hich he had concealed be- 
tween the covers, and sprinkling as with 
fresh blood those who sat near him." 

There is something overwhelmingly ludi- 
crous about this bladder of poke-weed juice! 
And what a subject for a painter! — the 
portentous, white-bearded dwarf standing 
there in the midst of the church, in act 
to plunge his gigantic sword tragically 
into the innermost bowels of the crimson 
poke-juice bladder, and from all parts of 
the house the converging looks of the broad- 
brimmed and shovel-bonneted Quakers! 

Mr. Whittier further says that " Lay was 



AMESBURY. I47 

well acquainted with Dr. Franklin, who 
sometimes visited him. Among other 
schemes of reform he entertained the idea of 
converting all mankind to Christianity. This 
was to be done by three witnesses, — him- 
self, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble, 
assisted by Dr. Franklin. But, on their 
first meeting at the doctor's house, the 
three ^ chosen vessels ' got into a violent 
controversy on points of doctrine, and sepa- 
rated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who 
had been an amused listener, advised the 
three sages to give up the project of con- 
verting the world until they had learned to 
tolerate each other." 

In 1873 Mr. Whittier edited " Child-Life 
in Prose." It is a collection of pretty stories, 
chiefly about the childhood of various emi- 
nent persons. One of the stories is by the 
editor, and is about "A Fish that I Didn't 
Catch." 

In 1875 appeared "Songs of Three Cen- 
turies." The poet's design in this work 
was (to use his own words) "to gather up 
in a comparatively small volume, easily ac- 
cessible to all classes of readers, the wisest 



148 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

thoughts, rarest fancies, and devoutest 
hymns of the metrical authors of the last 
three centuries." He says, " The selec- 
tions I have made indicate, in a general 
way, my preferences." It is a choice col- 
lection, rich in lyrical masterpieces. 



LATER DAYS. 149 



CHAPTER VII. 



LATER DAYS. 



About a mile westward from the village 
of Danvers, Mass., a grassy road, named 
Summer Street, branches off to the right 
and north. It is a pleasant, winding road, 
bordered by picturesque old stone fences 
and lined with barberry and raspberry bushes 
and gnarled old apple-trees. On either side 
are cultivated fields. Oak Knoll, the winter 
residence of Whittier, is the second house 
on the left, some half a mile up the road. 

This fine old estate had been occupied 
for half a century by a man of wealth and 
taste. About the year 1875 it passed into 
the hands of Col. Edmund Johnson, of 
Boston, whose wife was Whittier's cousin. 

It was planned that the poet should be 
a member of the household ; rooms were 
set apart and arranged for him, and he 
gave the estate its present name. 



150 ^ JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

It is a spot full of traditions, and well 
suited to any poet's residence, most of all 
for one so versed in New England legends. 
It is the very spot once occupied by the 
Rev. George Burroughs, a clergyman who 
was hung for witchcraft in 1692, on the 
charge, among other things, of " having 
performed feats of extraordinary physical 
strength." He could hold out a gun seven 
feet long, tradition says, by putting his fin- 
ger in the muzzle, and could lift a barrel of 
molasses in the same way by the bung-hole. 
For acts like these — deemed unclerical, at 
least, if not unnatural — he was convicted 
and hanged ; and a well on the premises of 
Oak Knoll is still known as the " witch well." 

Here, in the home of relatives, the poet 
has lived since 1876. A lovelier and more 
poetical place it would be difficult to imagine. 
The extensive, carefully kept grounds, and 
the antique elegance of the house, give to 
the estate the air of an old English manor, 
or gentleman's country hall. The house is 
approached by along, upward-sweeping lawn, 
diversified with stately forest trees, clumps 
of evergreens and shrubs and flowers. Down 
across the road stands a large and hand- 



LATER DAYS. 



153 



some biirn, which is as neat as paint and 
care can make it. In front of the house 
the eye ranges downward over an extensive 
landscape, as far as to the town of Pea- 
body, in the direction of Salem. Indeed, 
on every side of the estate there are broad 
and distant views of the blue hills of Essex 
and Middlesex. 

In the summer, as you ascend the carriage- 
road that winds through the grounds, your 
eye is captured by the rare beauty of the 
scene. Yonder is a tall living wall of ver- 
dure, with an archway cut through it. To 
the left the grounds sweep gently down to 
a deep ravine, where a little rivulet, named 
Beaver Brook, creeps leisurely out and winds 
seaward through green and marish meadows. 
It is in this portion of the grounds that the 
fine oak-trees grow which give to the place 
its name. Here, too, is a large grove of 
pines, with numerous seats within it. There 
are trees and trees at Oak Knoll, -^ — smooth 
and shapely hickories, glistering chestnuts 
with cool foliage, maples, birches, and the 
purple beech. Add to the picture the rural 
accessories of bee-haunted clover-fields, apple 
and pear orchards, and beds of tempting 



154 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

strawberries. The house is of wood, salmon- 
colored, with tall porches on each side, up- 
propped by stately Doric columns. In front, 
with wade sweep of closely cropped grass in- 
tervening, is the magnificent Norway spruce 
that Oliver Wendell Holmes, a year or two 
before Mr. Whittier's death, on one of those 
periodical visits to his brother poet that so 
delighted their two souls, named " The Poets' 
Pao^oda." A luxuriant vine clusters about 
the eaves of the house. On the long porch 
a mocking-bird and a canary-bird fill the 
green silence with gushes of melody, and 
near at hand, in his study in the wing of 
the building, sits one with a singing pen and 
listens to their song. To their song and to 
the murmur of the tall pines by his window 
he listens, then looks into his heart and 
WTJtes, — this sweet-souled magician, — and 
craftily imprisons between the covers of his 
books, echoes of bird and tree music, bits 
of blue sky, glimpses of green landscape, 
winding rivers, and idyls of the snow, — all 
suffused and interfused with a glowing 
atmosphere of human and divine love, such 
as the poet found in this home of his choos- 
ing at Oak Knoll. It will not perhaps be 



LATER DAYS. I 55 

intruding upon the privacies of home to say 
that the members of the cultured household 
at Oak Knoll ever, found in their happy 
circle, their highest pleasure in ministering 
to all needs, social or otherwise, of their 
loved cousin the poet. Three sisters dis- 
pense the hospitalities of the house, and a 
young daughter of Mrs. Woodman's adds 
the charm of girlhood to the family life. 

Readers of Whittier, who know how 
deeply his writings are tinged with the 
scenery, legendary lore and folk-life of his 
native Merrimack Valley, will not wonder 
that a certain Heimweh, or home-sickness, 
draws him northward, when 



and 



" Flows amain 
The surge of summer's beauty." 



" Pours the deluge of the heat 
Broad northward o'er the land. 



It is but one hour's ride by cars from 
Danvers to Amesbury ; and part of the time 
in the latter place, and part of the time at 



1^6 LATER DAYS, 

the Isles of Shoals, and in the beautiful 
lake and mountain region of New Hamp- 
shire, Mr. Whittier passes the warm sea- 
son. For man}^ years it was his custom to 
spend a portion of each summer at the Bear- 
camp River House, in West Ossipee, N. H., 
some thirty miles north of Lake Winni- 
piseogee. The hotel was situated on a slight 
eminence, commanding a view of towering 
"Mount Israel" and of "Whittier Moun- 
tain," named after the poet. It is a region 
full of noble prospects, being just in the out- 
skirts of the White Mountain group. Sev- 
eral of the poems of Whittier were inspired 
by this scenery, notably "Among the Hills," 
"Sunset on the Bearcamp," and "The Seek- 
ing of the Waterfall." In the first of these 
we read how — 

"Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang," 

and — 

"Above his broad lake Ossipee, 

Once more the sunshine wearing, 
Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 
His grim armorial bearing." 

"Sunset on the Bearcamp" contains a 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. I57 

stanza considered by some to be one of the 
poet's finest: — 

"Touched by a light that hath no name, 

A glory never sung, 
Aloft on sky and mountain wall 

Are God's great pictures hung. 
How changed the summits vast and old ! 

No longer granite-browed, 
They melt in rosy mist ; the rock 

Is softer than the cloud ; 
The valley holds its breath ; no leaf 

Of all its elms is twirled : 
The silence of eternity 

Seems falling on the world." 

The Bearcamp River House (now no 
more) was a hostelry whose site, antique 
hospitality, and eminent guests were every 
whit as w^orthy to be embalmed in lasting 
verse as were those of the Wayside Inn of 
Sudbury. Before the red, crackling flames 
of its huge fire'place such literary characters 
as Whittier, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, 
and Hiram Rich used to o^ather on chill sum- 
mer evenings for the kind of talks that only 
a wood fire can inspire. The Quaker poet 
is a charming conversationalist, and can 
tell a story as capitally as he can write one. 



158 LATER DAYS, 

He has a goodly r^fertoire of ghost tales 
and legends of the marvellous. One of his 
best stones is about a scene that took place 
in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, when 
the court remanded a negro to slavery. The 
poet says that an old sailor w^ho was present 
became so infuriated by the spectacle that he 
made the air blue with oaths uttered in seven 
different languages."^ . 

December 17, 1877, was the poet's seven- 
tieth birthday, and the occasion was cele- 
brated in a twofold manner, namely, by a 
Whittier Tribute in the Literary Worlds 
and by a Whittier Banquet given at the 
Hotel Brunswick, in Boston, by Messrs. 
H. O. Houghton and Co., the publishers 
of Whittier's works. The Literaiy World 
tribute contained poems by Henry Wads- 
worth Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, E. C. 
Stedman, O. W. Holmes, William Lloyd 
Garrison, and others. Mr. Longfellow's 
poem, "The Three Silences," is one of un- 
usual beauty. 

* For these details about daj^s on the Bearcamp, the writer 
is indebted to Dr. Robert R. Andrews, an acquaintance of 
the poet. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 1 59 

THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS. 

" Three Silences there are : the first of speech, 
The second of desire, the third of thought ; 
This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught 
With dreams and visions, was the first to teach. 

These Silences, commingling each with each 
Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought 
And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught 
Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach. 

O thou, whose daily life anticipates 

The life to come, and in whose thought and word 
The spiritual world preponderates. 

Hermit of Amesbury ! thou too hast heard 
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, 
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred ! " 

There were letters from the poet Bryant, 
the historian George Bancroft, Colonel T. W. 
Higginson, and Mrs. H. B. Stowe; and there 
was a pleasant description of the Danvers 
home by Charles B. Rice. Mr. Whittier's 
" Response " was published in the January 
number of the paper: — 

" Beside that milestone where the level sun, 
Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays 
On word and work irrevocably done, 
Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, 

I hear, O friends ! your words of cheer and praise, 
Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. 
Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, 
A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke." 



l6o LATER DAYS. 

The anniversary of the founding of the 
Atlantic Monthly happening to be syn- 
chronous with Whittier's birthday, the pub- 
lishers determined to make a double festival 
of the occasion. The gathering at the Hotel 
Brunswick was a brilliant one, and the invi- 
tations were not limited by any clique or any 
sectional lines. 

In this same month the admirers of 
Mr. Whittier in Haverhill, Newburyport, 
and neighboring towns, formed a Whittier 
Club, its annual meetings to be held on 
December 17. 

The ladies of Amesbury presented to 
the poet on his birthday a richly finished 
Russia-leather portfolio, containing four- 
teen beautiful sketches in water-colors of 
scenes in and about Amesbury, by a tal- 
ented Amesbury artist. The subjects of the 
sketches are those scenes which he has 
immortalized in his poems, and include his 
home, birthplace, the old school-house, 
old Quaker Meeting-House, Rivermouth 
Rocks, etc. The portfolio was presented 
to him at Oak Knoll, accompanied by a 
basket of exquisite flowers. 

Since taking up his residence in Danvers, 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. l6j 

the poet has published " The Vision of 
Echard, and Other Poems," — including 
the beautiful ballad, '^The Witch of Wen- 
ham," = — and "The King's Missive, and 
Other Poems." 
11 



1 62 PERSONAL. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PERSONAL. 

As a boy, Whittier grew up slender^ 
delicate, and sh}^ with dark hair and dark 
eyes; his nature silent and brooding, 
gentle, compassionate, religious, and sen- 
sitive to the beauty of the external world. 
He is of the nervous temperament, and 
his health has never been robust. Indeed, 
in later life the state of his health has often 
been precarious, and his plans for work 
have been at the mercy of his nerves. As 
a 3'Oung man, and crowned Laureate of 
Freedom, Whittier must have presented a 
striking appearance, with his raven hair, and 
glittering black eyes flashing with the inspi- 
ration of a great cause. Mr. J. Miller Mc- 
Kim, a member with Whittier of the 
famous Anti-Slavery Convention held in 
Philadelphia in 1833, thus describes the 
poet: — 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 1 63 

" He wore a dark frock-coat with stand- 
ing collar, which, with his thin hair, dark 
and sometimes flashing eyes, and black 
whiskers, — not large, but noticeable in 
those unhirsute days, — gave him, to my 
then unpractised eye, quite as much of a 
military as a Quaker aspect. His broad, 
square forehead and well-cut features, 
aided by his incipient reputation as a poet, 
made him quite a noticeable feature in the 
convention." 

Frederika Bremer, in her "Sketches of 
American Homes," gives an outline portrait 
of Whittier as he appeared when forty 
years of age: — 

"He has a good exterior, a figure slen- 
der and tall, a beautiful head with refined 
features, black eyes full of fire, dark com- 
plexion, a fine smile, and lively but very 
nervous manner. Both soul and spirit have 
overstrained the nervous cords and wasted 
the body. He belongs to those natures 
who would advance with firmness and 
joy to martyrdom in a good cause, and yet 
who are never comfortable in society, and 
who look as if they would run out of the 



1 64 PERSONAL. 

door every moment. He lives with his 
mother and sister in a country-house to 
which I have promised to go. I feel that 
I should enjoy myself with Whittier, and 
could make him feel at ease with me. I 
know from my own experience what this 
nervous bashfulness, caused by the over- 
exertion of the brain, requires, and how 
persons who suffer therefrom ought to be 
met and treated." 

George W. Bungay, in his " Crayon 
Sketches" of distinguished Americans, pub- 
lished in 1852, gives the following pict- 
ure of Whittier: "His temperament is 
nervous-bilious; [he] is tall, slender and 
straight as an Indian; has a superb head; 
his brow looks like a white cloud under 
his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, 
and glowing with expression, — . . . those 
starlike eyes flashing under such a magnifi- 
cent forehead." 

A writer in the Democratic Review for 
August, 1845, speaks of "the fine intel- 
lectual beauty of his expression, the blend- 
ino- brio^htness and softness of the clear dark 



JOHN GREEN LEAF VVHITTIER. 1 65 

eye, the union of manly firmness and cour- 
ao-e with womanly sweetness and tenderness 
alike in countenance and character." 

Mr. David A. Wasson says that Whittier 
is of the Saracenic or Hebrew prophet type: 
"The high cranium, so lofty, especially 
in the dome, — the slight and symmetrical 
backward slope of the %vhoJe head, — the 
powerful level brows, and beneath these the 
dark, deep eyes, so full of shadowed fire, — 
the Arabian complexion, — the sharp-cut, 
intense lines of the face, — the light, tall, 
erect stature, — the quick, axial poise of the 
movement," — all these traits reveal the fiery 
Semitic prophet. 

The long backward and upward slope 
of the head, alluded to by Mr. Wasson, is 
very striking. It is the head of Walter 
Scott or of Emerson. Whittier is now an 
old man, somewhat hard of hearing, and 
with the fixed sadness of time upon his 
pleasant face. But ever and anon, as you 
converse with him, his countenance is irra- 
diated by a sudden smile, sweet and strange 
and full of benignity, — like a waft of per- 



1 66 PERSONAL. 

fume from a bed of white violets, or a glint 
of rich sunlight on an April day. His is one 
of those Emersonian natures that everybody 
loves at first sight. The very mole under 
the right eye seems somehow^ the birth-mark 
or sign-manual of kindliness. The quaint 
grammatical solecisms of the Quaker and the 
New England farmer — the "thee's" and the 
omission of the ^'s from present participles 
and other words ending in "ing" — give 
to the poet's conversation a certain slight 
piquancy and picturesqueness."^ About half- 
past nine every morning, when at Amesbury, 
Mr. Whittier walks down for the mail and 
the news, and perhaps has a chat with some 
neighbor on the street, or with the country 
editor who is setting up in type his own 
editorials while he grimly rolls his quid of 
tobacco in his cheek. In the spring and 

* The writer remembers once speaking with a laborer whom 
Mr. Whittier had employed. The good fellow could not 
conceal his admiration for the poet, "Why," he said, "you 
wouldn't think it, would you, but he talks just like com- 
mon folks. We was talkin' about the apples one day, and 
he said, ' Some years they ain't wuth pickin',' — just like any- 
body, you know; ain't stuck up at all, and yet he's a great 
man, you know. He likes to talk with farmers and common 
folks; he don't go much with the bigbugs ; — one of the 
nicest men, and liberal with his' money, too." 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 10/ 

early summer the. poet's dress will be after 
this fashion: black coat and vest, gray pant- 
aloons, cinnamon-colored overcoat, drab tile 
hat, and perhaps a small gray tippet around 
his neck. As he w^alks, he salutes those 
whom he meets with a little jerky bow. A 
forty years' residence in Amesbury has made 
him acquainted with almost everybod}^, 
and he might, therefore, very properly be 
somewhat economical of exertion in his 
salutations. But his abrupt bow is really 
the expression of that unbending recti- 
tude and noble pride in individual free- 
dom that made him the reformer and the 
poet of liberty. As a single instance of 
Whittier's kind-heartedness, take the fol- 
lowing incident, narrated by an anonymous 
writer in the Literary World for Decem- 
ber, 1877: "When I was a young man 
trying to get an education, I went about 
the country peddling sewing-silk to helo 
myself through college; and one Satur- 
day night found me at Amesbury, a 
stranger and without a lodging-place. It 
happened that the first house at which I 
called was Whittier's, and he himself came 
to the door. On hearing my request he 



1 68 PERSONAL. 

said he was very sorry that he could not 
keep me, but it was quarterly meeting and 
his house was full. He, however, took the 
trouble to show me to a neighbor's, where 
he left me; but that did not seem to wholly 
suit his idea of hospitality, for in the course 
of the evening he made his appearance, 
saying that it had occurred to him that he 
could sleep on a lounge, and give up his 
own bed to me^ — which it is, perhaps, need- 
less to say, was not allowed. But this was 
not all. The next morning he came again, 
with the suggestion that I might perhaps 
like to attend meeting, inviting me to go 
with him; and he gave me a seat next to 
himself The meeting lasted an hour, during 
which there was not a word spoken by any 
one. We all sat in silence that length of 
time, then all arose, shook hands and dis- 
persed; and I remember it as one of the 
best meetings I ever attended." 

Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, is a 
reader of Mr. Whittier's poems, and an 
ardent admirer of his genius. He has 
exchanged letters with him, both in re- 
gard to poetry and to the emancipation of 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 1 69 

slaves.* When his Majesty was in this 
country, in 1876, he expressed a wish to 
meet Mr. Whittier, and on Wednesda}^ 
evening, June 14, a little reception was ar- 
ranged by Mrs. John T. Sargent at her 
Chestnut Street home, a few prominent per- 
sons having been invited to be present. 
" When the Emperor arrived, the other 
guests had already assembled. Sending up 
his card, his Majesty followed it with the 
quickness of an enthusiastic school-boy; and 
his first question, after somewhat hastily 
paying his greetings, was for Mr. Whittier. 
The poet stepped forward to meet his im- 
perial admirer, who would fain have caught 
him in his arms and embraced him warmly, 
with all the enthusiasm of the Latin race. 
The diffident Friend seemed somewhat 
abashed at so demonstrative a greeting, but 
with a cordial grasp of the hand drew Dom 
Pedro to the sofa, where the two chatted 
easily and with the familiarity of old 
friends. 

"The rest of the company allowed them 

* The Emperor has translated Whittier's " Crj of a Lost 
Soul " into Portuguese, and has sent to the poet several speci- 
mens of the Amazonian bird whose peculiar note suggested 
the poem. 



1 70 PERSONAL. 

to enjoy their tete-a-tete for some half hour, 
when they ventured to interrupt it, and the 
Emperor joined very heartily in a general 
conversation." 

As the Emperor w^as driving aw^ay, he 
was seen standing erect in his open ba- 
rouche, and " waving his hat, v^ith a seem- 
ing hurrah, at the house which held his 
venerable friend." ^ 

As a specimen of Mr. Whittier's genial 
and w^inning epistolary style, it is permissi- 
ble to quote here a letter of his, addressed to 
Mrs. John T. Sargent, and included by her 
in her sketches of the Radical Club: — 

" Amesbury, Wednesday Eve. 

" My Dear Mrs. Sargent, — Few 
stronger inducements could be held out to 
me than that in thy invitation to meet Lu- 
cretia Mott and Mary Carpenter. But I do 
not see that T can possibly go to Boston this 
week. None the less (Jo I thank thee, my 
dear friend, in thinking of me in connection 
with their visit. 

* Mrs. Sargent's " Sketches and Reminiscences of the 
Radical Club," pp. 301, 302. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 171 

" My love to Lucretia Mott, and tell her I 
have never forgotten the kind welcome and 
generous sympathy she gave the young 
abolitionist at a time w^hen he found small 
favor wdth his ^orthodox' brethren. What 
a change she and I have lived to see ! I 
hope to meet Miss Carpenter before she 
leaves us. For this, and for all thy kind- 
ness in times past, believe me gratefully 
thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier." 

The modesty and shyness of the poet 
have already been more than once alluded 
to. They form his most distinctive per- 
sonal or constitutional peculiarity. It is 
unnecessary to quote from his w^ritings to 
illustrate w^hat is patent to everybody who 
reads his books,, or knows anything about 
him. 

The poet's personal friends know well 
that he has a good deal of genial, mellow 
humorousness in his nature. To get an 
idea of it, read his charming prose sketches 
of home and rural life, and such poems as 
the whimsical, enigmatical "Demon of the 
Study," as well as " The Pumpkin," " To My 



172 PERSONAL. 

Old Schoolmaster," and the ^' Double- 
Headed Snake of Newbury." These 
poems almost equal Holmes's for rich and 
riant humor. 

It is not so well known as it ought to be 
that the author of " Snow-Bound " has as 
deep a love of children as had Longfellow. 
Before the Bearcamp House was burned 
to the ground in 1880, Mr. Whittier used 
sometimes to come up from Amesbury with 
a whole bevy of little misses about him, 
and at the hotel the wee folk hailed him 
as one of those dear old fellows whom they 
always love at sight. It is said that Edward 
Lear — the friend of Tennyson, and author 
of " Nonsense Verses " for children — used 
to make a hobby-horse of himself in the 
castles of Europe, and treat his little friends 
to a gallop over the carpet on his back. If 
Mr. Whittier never got quite so far as this 
in juvenile equestrianism, he has at least 
equall}^ endeared himself to the children 
who have had the good fortune to look into 
his loving eyes and enjoy the sunshine of 
his smile. When sitting by the fireside, or 
stretched at ease on the fragrant hay in the 
barn or field, or walking among the hills. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. I 73 

nothing pleases him better than to have an 
audience of young folks eagerly listening to 
one of his stories. If they are engaged in 
a game of archery, he will take a hand in 
the sport, and no one is better pleased than 
he to hit the white. His unfailing kindness 
in answering the many letters addressed 
to him by young literary aspirants, or by 
others who desire his advice and help, is 
something admirable: no one knows how 
to win hearts better than he. 

To these notes of personal traits it only 
remains to add a list of the offices of dig- 
nity and honor which have been held by 
Mr. Whittier. Besides his various edito- 
rial, secretarial, and legislative positions, he 
served as Overseer of Harvard College 
from 1858 to 1863. He was a member of 
the Electoral College in i860 and in 1864. 
The degree of Master of Arts was be- 
stowed upon him by Harvard College in 
i860, and the same degree by Haverford 
College in the same year. He was elected 
a resident member of the American Philo- 
sophical Society in 1864, but never accepted 
the honor, notwithstanding the fact that his 



J y , PERSONAL, 



name appeared for two or three years on 
the Society's roll. In 187 1 he was made a 
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences. 



Part II. 

ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS. 



THE MAN. 177 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MAN. 

^'■Not by tJie page 'word-painted 
Let life be banned or sat?ited : 
Dee/per than ■written scroll 

The colors of the soul" 

My Triumph. 

To analyze and describe the -poetry of 
Whittier is a comparatively easy task, for it 
is all essentially lyrical or descriptive, and is 
resolvable into a few simple elements. His 
poetry is not profound; but it is sweet and 
melodious, — now flashing with the fire of 
freedom and choked with passionate in- 
dignation, and now purling and rippling 
through the tranquil meadows of legend and 
song. Such a poem as Emerson's " Sphinx," 
groaning with its weight of mystical mean- 
ing, Whittier never wrote, nor could write. 
Neither is he dramatic, nor skilled in the 
subtile harmonies of rhythm and metre. 
As an artist he is easily comprehensible. 



178 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

But to fathom the man^ — to drop one's 
plummet into the infinite depths of the 
human mind, to peer about with one's little 
candle among the dusty phantoms and spent 
forces of the past, and through the end- 
lessly crossing and interblending meshes 
trace confidently up all the greater and 
the finer hereditary influences that have 
moulded a human character, — and then 
discover and weigh the post-natal forces 
that have acted upon that character through 
a long' and varied life, — this is a very dif- 
ficult task, and demands in him who would 
undertake it a union of historic imagina- 
tion with caution and modesty. 

The moral in Whittier predominates 
over the aesthetic, the reformer over the 
artist. " I am a man, and I feel that I am 
above all else a man." What is the great 
central element in our poet's character, if 
it is not that deep, never-smouldering moral 
fervor, that unquenchable love of freedom, 
that — 

" Hate of tyranny intense, 
And hearty in its vehemence," 

which, mixed with the beauty and melody 



THE MAN. I8l 

of his soul, gives to his pages a delicate 
glow as of gold-hot iron; which crowns 
him the Laureate of Freedom in his day, 
and imparts to his utterances the manly 
ring of the prose of Milton and Hugo and 
the poetry of Byron, Swinburne, and 
Whitman, — all poets of freedom, like him- 
self ? 

And what is love of freedom but the 
mainspring of Democracy? And what is 
Democracy but the rallying-cry of the age, 
the one word of the present, the one word 
of the future, the word of all words, and 
the w^hite, electric beacon-light of modern 
life? 

At the apex of modern Democracy stands 
Jesus of Nazareth; at its base stand the 
poets and heroes of freedom of the past 
hundred years. Christian Democracy has 
had its revolutions, its religious ferments 
and revolts, and its emancipations of slaves. 
Quakerism is one of its outcomes. Democ- 
racy produced George Fox; George Fox 
produced Quakerism; Quakerism produced 
Whittier; Whittier helped destroy slavery. 
He could not help doing so, for with slavery 
both Democracy and Quakerism are in- 



1 82 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

compatible. Whittier fought slavery as a 
Quakerj he has lived as a Quaker, and writ- 
ten as a Qiiaker; he has never fully eman- 
cipated himself from the shackles of the 
sect. To understand him, therefore, we must 
understand his religion. 

The principles of the sect are all summed 
up in the phrases Freedom and the I?ine7^ 
Light. Historically considered, Quaker- 
ism is a product of the ferment that fol- 
lowed the civil war in England two centu- 
ries ago. Considered abstractly, or as a 
congeries of principles, it has a sociological 
and a philosophical root, both of these 
running back into the great tap-root, love 
of freedom, whose iron-tough, writhen 
fibres enwrap the dark' foundation rocks of 
human nature itself. 

Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is 
pure democracy, an exaltation of the maj- 
est}^ of the individual and of the mass of the 
people. It is the pure precipitate of Chris- 
tianity. It is a protest against the hypoc- 
risy, formalism, tyranny, of priestcraft, king- 
craft, and aristocracy. 

Philosophically, its theory of the Inner 



THE MAN^ 183 

Light is identical with the doctrine of 
idealism or innate ideas, held by Descartes, 
Fichte, Schelling, Cousin. It means indi- 
vidualism, a return to the primal sanities of 
the soul. "I think, therefore I am." My 
thinking soul is the ultimate source of 
ideas and truth. In that serene holy of 
holies full-grown ideas leap into being, — 
subjective, a priori, needing no sense-per- 
ception for their genesis. 

But Transcendentalism differed from 
Quakerism in this: the former held that the 
illumination of the mind was a natural pro- 
cess; but Quakerism maintains that it is a 
supernatural process, the work of the ^^Holy 
Ghost." And herein Quakerism is inferior 
to Transcendentalism. But it is superior to 
it in that it does not believe in the infalli- 
bility of individual intuitions, but considers 
the true criterion of truth to be the universal 
reason, the "consensus of the competent." 
Yet the great danger that pertains to all 
moonshiny, or subjective, systems of philos- 
ophy is that their individualism will spindle 
out into wild extravagances of theory, and 
foolish eccentricities of manner and dress; 
and we shall find that, practically, Qiiaker- 



I 84 JOHIV GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ism has as Quixotic a record as Transcen- 
dentalism. To say that both systems have 
performed noble and indispensable service 
in the development of mind is but to utter 
a truism. 

We may now consider a little more 
closely the peculiarities of doctrine and life 
which characterize the Friends. The doc- 
trine of the Inner Light, or pure spiritual- 
ity, resulted in such tenets as these: the 
freedom of conscience; the soul the foun- 
tain of all truth, worthlessness of tradition 
and unsanctified learning ; the conscience 
or voice within the judge of the Bible or 
Written Word ; disbelief in witchcraft, 
ghosts, and other superstitions; love of 
friends and enemies, the potency of 
moral suasion, moral ideas, and as a con- 
sequence the wickedness of war, and a 
belief in human progress as the. result of 
peaceable industry; universal enfranchise- 
ment, every man and woman may be en- 
lightened by the Inner Light, — hence 
equality of privilege, no distinction between 
clergy or laity or between sex and sex, — 
the right of woman to develop her entire 



THE MAN, 185 

nature as she sees fit. In the principles 
which define the attitude of the Quaker 
toward social conventions, we find a queer 
jumble of the doctrines of primitive Chris- 
tianity with the ideas of individual indepen- 
dence innate in the Germanic mind, and 
especially in the popular mind.^ The Chris- 
tian gospel of love forbids the Quakers to 
countenance war, capital punishment, im- 
prisonment for debt, slavery, suppressment 
of the right of free speech and the right of 
petition. Their doctrine of equality in vir- 
tue of spiritual illumination forbids them to 
remove their hats in presence of any human 
being, even a king; leads them to avoid the 
use of the plural "you," as savoring of 
man-worship, and to refuse to employ a 
hired priesthood. Their doctrine of pure 
spirituality is inconsistent with sacerdotal 

* The same sterling material that went to the making of the 
Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farm.er-and-arti- 
san victors of Nasebj, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The 
same faults characterized each class. In stiff-backed inde- 
pendence and scorn of the gilt-edged poetry of conventional 
manners, and in the absurd extreme to which they carried 
that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the Puritan 
were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan, — 
was much more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny 
asceticism, and contempt for distinguished manners and the 
noble imaginative arts. 



1 86 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

rites and mummeries, such as baptism, the 
eucharist, forms of common prayer, etc. 
Music, poetry, painting, and dancing also 
have a worldly savor and tend to distract the 
mind from its spiritual life. So do rich and 
gaudy robes: w^e must therefore have sim- 
plicity of dress. Hear William Penn on 
this subject: ^ — 

"I say, if sin brought the first coat, poor 
Adam's offspring have little reason to be 
proud or curious in their clothes. ... It 
is all one as if a man v^ho had lost his 
nose by a scandalous distemper, should take 
pains to set out a false one, in such shape- 
and splendor as should give the greater 
occasion for all to gaze upon him; as if he. 
would tell them he had lost his nose, for 
fear the}^ would think he had not. But 
would a w^ise man be in love with a false 
nose, though ever so rich, and however 
finely made ? " 

A natural corollary of the Friends' doc- 
trine of inward supernatural illumination is 
their habit of silent worship, or silent wait- 

* In his work " No Cross, No Crown." 



THE MAN. 187 

ing.* It is probable that this feature of 
their religious gatherings has done much to 
cultivate that peculiar tranquillity of de- 
meanor which distinguishes them.f They 
meet the burdens, bereavements, and disap- 
pointments of life with a placid equanimity 
in strong antithesis to the often passionate 
grief and rebellion of other classes of reli- 
gious people. Finally, we may add to the 
list of their characteristics their great moral 
sincerity. "With calm resoluteness they tell 
you your faults face to face, and without 
exciting your ill-will." 

The objections to the Quakerism of our 
day are that it is retractile, stationary, neg- 
ative; it is selfish, narrow, ascetic, tame; 
it has no iron in its blood; it rarely adds 
anything to the world's thought. The 
Quakers are a hopelessly antiquated sect, 

* Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the 
following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary 
Brook : " Solomon saith, ' The preparations of the heart in 
man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the Lord.' If 
the Lord alone can prepare the heart, stir it up, or incline it 
towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man approach him 
acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him? — and how can 
he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel 
it?" 

t See Appendix I. 



1 88 . JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

a dying branch almost wholly severed from 
connection with the living forces of the tree 
of modern society. There are, it is true, 
a goodly number of liberal Quakers, who, 
in discarding the peculiar costume of the 
time of Charles II., which many of them 
even yet wear, have also thrown off the 
intellectual mummy-robes of the sect. 
Many adopt the tenets of Unitarianism, 
or make that religious body the stepping- 
stone to complete emancipation from an 
obsolete system of thought. But the mass 
of them are immovable. They have been 
characterized substantially in the following 
words by Mr. A. M. Powell, himself a 
Quaker by birth, and an unwilling witness 
to the faults of a system of doctrines in 
which he sees much to admire: — 

"In its merely sectarian aspect, Quaker- 
ism is as uninteresting, narrow, timid, self- 
ish, and conservative as is mere sectari- 
anism under any other name. The Quakers 
have little comprehension of the meaning 
of Quakerism beyond a blind observance of 
the peculiarities of dress and speech and 
the formality of the Meeting. They cling 
to the now meaningless protests of the past. 



THE MAN, 189 

They are inaccessible to new conceptions of 
truth. They have dishonored the impor- 
tant fundamental principle [of the Inner 
Light] and tarnished the Society's good 
name by subordinating it to narrow views 
of religion, to commercial selfishness, and 
to the prevalent palsying conservatism of 
the outside world." "^ 

In all that is said in these pages by way 
of criticism of the Quakers, reference is 
had solely to their doctrines as a system 
of thought. Of their sweet and beautiful 
lives it is hardly necessary to speak at 
length. Volumes might be filled with in- 
stances of their large-hearted benevolence 
and personal self-sacrifice in care for others. 
The loveliness of their lives is like a beau- 
tiful perfume in the society in which they 
move. As you see the Quaker women 
of Philadelphia, with their pure, tranquil 
faces, and plain, immaculate dress, moving 
about among the greedy and vile-mannered 
non-Quaker canaille of that democratic 
city, they seem like Christian and Faithful 

* Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of 
the Radical Club." 



I90 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

amid the crowds of Vanity Fair. Their 
faces are like a benediction, and you thank 
heaven for them. The liberal Friends in 
America have many great and noble names 
on their roll of honor. And surely a sect 
that has produced such characters as Lucre- 
tia Mott, John Bright, and John G. Whittier, 
must win our intellectual respect. But it is 
only because these persons, like Milton, were 
in most respects above their sect that we 
admire them. There are proofs manifold, 
however, throughout the prose and poetry 
of Whittier that he has nominally remained 
within the pale of Quakerism all his days. 
Doubtless such a course was essential to the 
very existence in him of poetic inspiration. 
His genius is wholly lyrical. A song or lyric 
is the outgushing of pure emotion. Espe- 
cially in the case of the religious and ethi- 
cal lyrist is faith life, and doubt death. 
Doubt, in Whittier's case, would have meant 
the cessation of his songs. To break aw^ay 
entirely from the faith of his fathers would 
have chilled his inspiration. He has not, it 
is true, escaped the conflict with doubt. As 
we shall see, no man has had a severer strug- 
gle to reconcile his faith with the terror and 



THE MAN. 191 

mystery of life. But, although his religious 
views have been liberalized by science, yet 
he has never ceased to retain a hearty sym- 
pathy with, and belief in, the Quaker princi- 
ples of the Inner Light, silent waiting, etc. 

That he has remained within the pale of 
Quakerism has been an injury to him as well 
as a help. It makes him obtrude his sec- 
tarianism too frequently, especially in his 
prose writings. By the very nature of the 
creed, he must either be blind to its faults, 
or constantly put on the defensive against 
the least assault, from whatever quarter it 
may come. When he dons the garb of the 
sectary, he naturally becomes weakened, and 
loses his chief charm. We see then that he 
is a man hampered by a creed which forbids 
a catholic sympathy with human nature. He 
is shut up in the narrow field of sectarian 
morals and religion. He cannot,*for exam- 
ple, enter, by historical imagination, into 
poetical sympathy with the gorgeous ritual 
and dreamy beauty of a European cathedral 
service. And yet so pure, gentle, and sweet 
is his nature that it is hard to censure him 
for this peculiarity. It is regret rather than 
censure that we feel, regret that he has 



192 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. ' 

been so bound by circumstances that pre- 
vented his breaking wholly away from ham- 
pering limitations, and to be always, what 
he so often is, the strong and sweet-voiced 
spokesman of the heart of humanity. 

Let us hear his gentle confessions of faith. 
In the autobiographical poem, ^^ My Name- 
sake," v^e read: — 

" He worshipped as his fathers did, 
And kept the faith of childish days, 
And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid. 
He loved the good old ways. 

The simple tastes, the kindly traits, 
The tranquil air, and gentle speech. 

The silence of the soul that waits 
For more than man to teach." 

In "The Meeting" he has given us an 
"Apologia pro Vita Sua," — a defence of his 
religious habits. He says he is accustomed 
to meet wi"th the Friends twice a week in 
the little Meeting" at Amesbury, chiefly for 
two reasons: first, because in the silent, un- 
adorned house, with "pine-laid floor," his 
religious comrnunings are not distracted by 
outward things as they would be if he wor- 
shipped always amid the solitudes of nature; 
and, secondly, he finds in "The Meeting" a 



THE MAN. 193 

heart-solace in the memories of dear ones 
passed away, who once sat by his side 
there. He says, in reference to the Quaker 
service : — 

" I ask no organ's soulless breath 
To drone the themes of life and death, 
No altar candle-lit by day, 
No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, 
No cool philosophy to teach 
Its bland audacities of speech. 

No pulpit hammered by the fist 
Of loud-asserting dogmatist." 

In " Memories " he says : — 

" Thine the Genevan's sternest creed. 
While answers to my spirit's need 

The Derby dalesman's simple truth. 
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer. 

And holy day and solemn psalm ; 
For me, the silent reverence where 

My brethren gather slow and calm." 

There are two epochs in the religious 
or philosophical development of Whittier. 
The first — that of simple piety unclouded 
by doubt, the epoch of unhesitating accept- 
ance of the popular mythology — seems to 
have lasted until about 1850, or the period 
of early Darwinism and Spencerianism, — 

13 



194 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

the most momentous epoch in the religious 
history of the world. This pivotal point 
is very well marked by the publication, 
in 1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" 
and " Questions of Life." It is now that 
harrowing doubt begins, and restless striv- 
ing to retain the faith amid new conditions 
and a vastly widened mental horizon. Tran- 
scendentalism, too, had just passed the noon 
meridian of its splendor. Emerson had 
written many of his exquisite philosophical 
poems, and Parker had blown his clear 
bugle-call to a higher religious life. It is 
evident that Whittier was — as, indeed, he 
could not help being — profoundly moved 
by the new spirit of the times. 

With Transcendentalism he must have 
had large sympathy, owing to the similarity 
of its principles to those of Quakerism. 
And that he was profoundly agitated by 
the revelations of science his poetry shows. 
In " My Soul and I " (a poem remarkable 
for its searching subjective analysis), and 
in the poem " Follen," he had given expres- 
sion to religious doubt, over which, as al- 
ways in his case, faith was triumphant. 
But it is in " The Chapel of the Hermits " 



THE MAN. 1^2 

and succeeding poems that he first gave 
free and full utterance to the doubt \nd 
struggle of soul that was not his alone, but 
which was felt by all around him. In re- 
spect of doubt " My Soul and I" and " Qiies- 
tions of Life" resemble "Faust," as well 
as Tennyson's " Two Voices " and the " In 
Memoriam." 

" Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud ,• 
He heard far voices mock his own, 
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, 
Long roll of waves unknown. 

The arrows of his straining sight 

Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage 

Like lost guides calling left and right, 
Perplexed his doubtful age. 

Like childhood, listening for the sound 

Of its dropped pebbles in the well. 
All vainly down the dark profound 

His brief-lined plummet fell." 

My Namesake. 

The " QLiestions of Life '' are such as 
these: — 

" I am : but little more I know ! 
Whence came I .? Whither do I go .? 
A centred self, which feels and is ; 
A cry between the silences.'' 



196 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

"This conscious life, — is it the same 
Which thrills the universal frame ? " 

" Do bird and blossom feel, like me, 
Life's many-folded mystery, — 
The wonder which it is To Be ? 
Or stand I severed and distinct. 
From Nature's chain of life unlinked ? " 

Such questions as these he confesses him- 
self unable to answer. He shrinks back 
terrified from the task. He will not dare 
to trifle with their bitter logic. He will 
take refuge in faith; he will trust the Un- 
seen; let us cease foolish questioning, and 
live wisely and well our present lives. He 
comes out of the struggle purified and chas- 
tened, still holding by his faith in God and 
virtue. A good deal of the old Quakerism 
is gone, — the belief in hell, in the Messianic 
and atonement machinery, in local and 
special avatars, etc. Again and again, in 
his later poems, he asserts the humanity of 
Christ and the co-equal divinity of all men: 
see " Miriam," for example. His opin- 
ion about hell he embodies in the sweet 
little poem, "The Minister's Daughter," 
published in "The King's Missive." In 
short, his religion is a simple and trustful 



THE MAN. 197 

theism. But there is no evidence that he 
has ever incorporated into his mind the 
principles of the development-science, — 
the evolution of man, the correlation of 
forces, the development of the universe 
through its own inner divine potency; or, 
in fine, any of the unteleological, unan- 
thropomorphic explanations of things which 
are necessitated by science, and admitted 
by advanced thinkers, both in and out of the 
Churches. 

As witnesses to his trustful attitude, we 
may select such, a cluster of stanzas as 
this : — 

" Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, 
Through present wrong, the eternal right ; 
And, step by step, since time began, 
I see the steady gain of man ; 

That all of good the past hath had 
Remains to make our own time glad, — 
Our common daily life divine. 
And every land a Palestine. 

Through the harsh noises of our day 
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
A light is breaking calm and clear." 

Chapel of the Hermits, 



198 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storm and flood, 
To one fixed stake my spirit clings ; 
I know that God is good ! 



I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care." 

The Eternal Goodness. 

" When on my day of life the night is falling, 

And in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, 
I hear far voices out of darkness calling 
My feet to paths unknown, 

Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, 
Leave not its tenant when its walls decay ; 

O love divine, O Helper ever present, 
Be Thou my strength and stay ! " 

At Last. 

" Dear Lord and Father of mankind, 

Forgive our foolish ways ! 
Reclothe us in our rightful mind, 
In purer lives thy service find. 

In deeper reverence, praise." 

T/ic Brewing of Soma. 



But Whittier is as remarkable for his faith 
in man as for his faith in God. He is in the 
highest degree patriotic, American. He 
loves America because it is the land of free- 



THE MAN, 199 

dom. It has been charged against him that 
he is no true American poet, but a Qiiaker 
poet. The American, it is said, is eager, 
aggressive, high-spirited, combative; the 
Qiiaker, subdued and phlegmatic. The 
American is loud and boastful and daring 
and reckless; the Quaker, cautious, timid, 
secretive, and frugal. This is undoubtedly 
true of the classes as types, but it is far 
from being true of Whittier personally. 
He has blood militant in him. He comes 
of Puritan as v^ell as Qiiaker stock. The 
Greenleafs and the Batchelders were not 
Quakers. The reader v^ill perhaps remem- 
ber the Lieutenant Greenleaf, already men- 
tioned, who fought through the entire Civil 
War in England."^ But his writings alone 

* Hear Whittier himself on the subject : — 

" Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable 
ancestry for many generations, I have still strong suspicions 
that somewhat of the old Norman blood, something of the 
grim Berserker spirit, has been bequeathed to me. How else 
can I account for the intense childish eagerness with which I 
listened to the stories of old campaigners who sometimes 
fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, 
in my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, 
to smite the garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the 
tierce son of Nun against the cities of Canaan? Why was 
Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's Progress, my favorite character? 
What gave such fascination to the grand Homeric encounter 



200 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 

furnish ample proof of his martial spirit. 
The man and the Quaker struggle within 
him for the mastery; and the man is, 
on the whole, triumphant. Whenever his 
Quakerism permits, he stands out a normal 
man and a genuine American. As Lowell 
says : — 

" There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart 
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart, 
And reveals the live Man still supreme and erect 
Underneath the bemumm3dng wrappers of sect." 

If anybody will take the trouble to glance 
over the complete works of Whittier, he or 
she will find that one of the predominant 
characteristics of his writings is their indi- 
genous quality, their national spirit. Indeed, 
this is almost too notorious to need men- 
tion. He, if any one, merits the proud title 
of "A Representative American Poet." His 
whole soul is on fire with love of country. 

between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Wliy did I 
follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the 
vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? 
Still, later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects 
for hero-worship in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, 
and Ypsilanti at the head of his knavish Greeks ? I can ac- 
count for it only on the supposition that the mischief was 
inherited, — an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the ninth 
Q^ntViYj." -^ Pyose Works, II., 390, 391. 



THE MAN. 20 1 

As in the case ofWhitman, his country is his 
bride, and upon it he has showered all the 
affectional wealth of his nature. The Qiia- 
ker may be too obtrusive in his prose 
writings, but it is not so in the greater and 
better portion of his poetry. When the rush 
and glow of genuine poetical inspiration 
seize him, he invariably rises in spirit far 
above the w^eltering and eddying dust- 
clouds of faction and sect into the serene 
atmosphere of genuine patriotism. Read 
his "Last Walk in Autumn," where he 
says : — 

" Home of my heart ! to me more fair 

Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, 
The painted, shingly town-house where 
The freeman's vote for Freedom falls ! " 

Read his "Eve of Election": — 

"Not lightly fall 

Beyond recall 
The written scrolls a breath can float ; 

The crowning fact, 

The kingliest act 
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote ! " 

Or take "After Election," a poem that can- 
not be read without a thrill of the nerves and a 
leaping of the heart. You have concentrated 



•^■>^. 



202 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

in that wild lyric burst the purest essence 
of democratic patriotism, — the trembling 
anxiety and yearning of a mother-heart. It 
is a poem celebrating a victory of peace with 
ail the- fiery energy of a w^ar-ode (a signifi- 
cant fact that the advocates cf gory war, as 
a source of poetic inspiration, w^ould do well 
to ponder) : — 

"The day's sharp strife is ended now, 
Our work is done, God knoweth how ! 
As on the thronged, unrestful town 
The patience of the moon looks down, 
I wait to hear, beside the wire, 
The voices of its tongues of fire. 

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first : 
Be strong, my heart, to know the worst ! 
Hark ! — there the Alleghanies spoke ; 
That sound from lake and prairie broke, 
That sunset gun of triumph rent 
The silence of a continent ! 

That signal from Nebraska sprung. 

This, from Nevada's mountain tongue ! 

Is that thy answer, strong and free, 

O loyal heart of Tennessee ? 

What strange, glad voice is that which calls 

From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls ? 

From Mississippi's fountain-head 
A sound as of the bison's tread ! 



THE MAN, 203 

There rustled freedom's Charter Oak ! 
In- that wild burst the Ozarks spoke ! 
Cheer answers cheer from rise to set 
Of sun. We have a country yet ! " 

To sum up now our analysis of the poet's 
character. We have seen that the central 
trait of his mind is love of freedom. (Even 
his religion, which is so profound an element 
in his nature, and so all-pervasive in his 
writings, will be found, on a deep analysis, 
to be a yearning for freedom from the trap- 
pings of sense and time, in order to attain to 
a spiritual union with the Infinite.) This 
love of freedom, this hatred of oppression, 
intensified by persecution, both ancestral and 
personal, stimulated by contact with Puritan 
democracy, as well as by the New England 
Transcendental movement, and flowering out 
luxuriantly in the long struggle against sla- 
very, — this noble sentiment, and that long 
self-sacrificing personal warfare in behalf of 
the oppressed, form the true glory of Whit- 
tier's character. Shy, timid, almost an in- 
valid, having a nervous horror of mobs and 
personal indignities, he yet forgot himself in 
his love of Man, overcame and underwent, — 
suffered social martyrdom for a quarter of a 



204 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

century, never flinching, never holding his 
peace for bread's sake or fame's sake, not 
stopping to count the cost, taking his life in 
his hand, and never ceasing to express his 
high-born soul in burning invective and 
scathing satire against the oppressor, or in 
v^ords of lofty hope and cheer for the suffer- 
ing idealist and lover of humanity, v^hoever 
and wherever he was. Whittier is a hero as 
well as a poet. He will be known to pos- 
terity by a few exquisite poems, but chiefly 
by his moral heroism and patriotism. As a 
thinker and a poet he belongs, with Bryant 
and Longfellow, to the pre-scientific age. 
The poetry of the future (of the new era of 
self-consciousness) will necessarily differ 
widely from that of the first half of this cen- 
tury. It will not be distinctively the poetry 
of Wordsworth, or Cowper, or Byron, or 
Longfellow, or Whittier. When the present 
materialistic and realistic temper of mind 
disappears from literature, and really noble 
ideal poetry returns, it will be vast in its 
scope and range, robust in its philosophy, 
unfettered by petty rh3^mes and classic- 
isms, but powerfully rhythmic and harmo- 
nious. The writings of Shakspere, Goethe, 



THE MAN. 205 

Jean Paul, Hugo, Tennyson, Whitman, and 
Emerson are the magnificent proem to it. 
It will be built upon a scientific and religious 
cosmism. It will not discuss Apollo and 
Luna and Neptune, and the nymphs and 
muses, but will draw its imagery firom the 
heaven-staining red-flames of the sun, the 
gulfs of space, the miracles of organic and 
inorganic life, and human society. It will 
draw its inspiration not more from the storied 
past than from the storied future foreseen by 
its prophetic eye. It will idealize human 
life and deify nature. It will fall in the era of 
imagination. (After it will come another age 
of criticism.) It will fall in the age of splen- 
did democracies. And in that age men will 
look back with veneration, not so much, per- 
haps, to the scholar-poets as to the hero-poets, 
like Whittier, who put faith in the rights of 
man and woman, who did believe in divine 
democracy, and were not ashamed of it, but 
nursed it patiently through its puling infancy, 
well assured of its undying grandeur when 
it should come to man's estate. 

We subjoin fittingly to this chapter a 
characteristic letter of Mr. Whittier's, in 



206 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

which he speaks lovingly of Robert Burns, 
that other poet of freedom and independence 
of thought for all men. 

At the Burns festival in Washington, 
1869, the following letter from John G. 
Whittier was read : 

" Amesbury, 1st month, iSth day, 1S69. 

" Dear Friend, — I thank the club repre- 
sented by thee for remembering me on the 
occasion of its annual festival. Thouo'h I 
have never been able to trace my ancestry 
to the Land o' Cakes, I have — and I know 
it is saying a great deal — a Scotchman's 
love for the poet whose fame deepens and 
broadens with years. The world has never 
known a truer singer. We may criticise his 
rustic verse and compare his brief and sim- 
ple lyrics with the works of men of longer 
scrolls and loftier lyres ; but after rendering 
to W^ordsworth, Tennyson and Browning 
the homage which the intellect owes to 
genius, we turn to Burns, if not with awe 
and reverence, [yet] with a feeling of per- 
sonal interest and affection. We admire 
others; we love him. As the day of his 
birth comes round, I take down his well- 



THE man: 207 

worn volume in grateful commemoration, 
and feel that I am communing with one 
whom living I could have loved as much for 
his true manhood and native nobility of soul 
as for those wonderful songs of his which 
shall sins: themselves forever. 

" They know little of Burns who regard 
him as an aimless versifier — 'the idle singer 
of an idle lay.' Pharisees in the Church, and 
oppressors in the State, knew better than 
this. They felt those immortal sarcasms 
which did not die with the utterer, but lived 
on to work out the divine commission of 
Providence. In the shout of enfranchised 
millions, as they lift the untitled Quaker of 
Rochdale into the British Cabinet, I seem 
to hear the voice of the Ayrshire poet: — 

" ' For a' that and a' that. 
It's comin' yet for a' that ; 
That man to man the world o'er 
Shall brothers be for a' that.' 

"With hearty sympathy and kind greet- 
ings for the Burns Club of Washington, 
" I am, very truly, thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier." 



208 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ARTIST. 

The title of this chapter is almost a mis- 
nomer; for the style, or technique, of the 
poet whose works we are considering is so 
very simple and unoriginal that he can hardly 
be said to have a distinctive style of his 
own, — unless a few persistent mannerisms 
establish a claim to it. His diction, however, 
is alw^ays pictorial, and glows with an in- 
tense Oriental fervor. Fused in this inte- 
rior vital heat, his thoughts do not sink, 
like powerful Jinn, into the deep silence- 
sphere of the mind, to fetch thence spark- 
ling treasures, rich and strange: rather, 
they run to and fro with lightning swiftness 
amid the million surface-pictures of the 
intellect; rearranging, recombining, and 
creatively blending its images, and finally 
pouring them out along the page to charm 
our fancy and feeling with old thoughts and 



THE ARTIST. 



209 



scenes painted in fresh colors and from new 
points of view. There is more of fancy 
than of creative imagination in Whittier. 

The artistic quality, or tone, of his mind 
is a fusion of that of Wordsworth and that 
of Byron. In his best ballads and other 
lyrics you have the moral sincerity of 
Wordsworth and the sweet Wordsworthian 
simplicity (with a difference); and in his 
reform poems you have the Byronic indig- 
nation, and scorn of Philistinism and its 
tyrannies. As a religious poet, he reveals 
the quiet piety and devoutness of Cowper; 
and his rural and folk poems show that he 
is a debtor to Burns. 

He has been a diligent reader, — "a close- 
browed miser of the scholar's gains,"— and 
his writings are full of bookish allusions. 
But, if the truth must be told, his doctor's 
gown does not often sit gracefully upon his 
shoulders. His readers soon learn to know 
that his strength lies in his moral nature, 
and in his power to tell a story melodiously, 
simply, and sweetly. Hence it is, doubt- 
less, that they care little for his literary 



2 10 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

allusions, — think, perhaps, that they are 
rather awkwardly dragged in by the ears, 
and at any rate hasten by them impatiently 
that they may inhale anew the violet-fresh- 
ness of the poet's own soul. What has just 
been said about bookish allusions does not 
apply to the beautiful historical ballads pro- 
duced by Whittier in the mellow^ maturity 
of his powers. These fresh improvisations 
are as perfect works of art as the finest 
Greek marbles. In them Whittier at length 
succeeds in freeing himself completely from 
the shackles of didacticism. Such ballads as 
"The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the 
Bees" are as absolutely faultless productions 
as Wordsworth's "We are Seven" and his 
"Lucy Gray," or as Uhland's "Des Sanger's 
Fluch," or William Blake's "Mary." There 
is in them the confident and unconscious 
ease that marks the work of the highest 
genius. A shower of lucid water-drops falls 
in no truer obedience to the law of perfect 
sphericity than flowed from the pen of the 
poet these delicate creations in obedience to 
the law of perfect spontaneity. Almost all 
of Whittier's lyrics have evidently been rap- 
idly written, poured forth in the first glow 



THE ARTIST. 2 I I 

of feeling, and not carefully amended and 
polished as were Longfellow's works. And 
herein he is at fault, as was Byron. But 
the delicate health of AVhittier, and his 
toilsome early da3's, form an excuse for his 
deficiency in this respect. His later crea- 
tions, the product of his leisure years, are 
full of pure and flawless music. They have 
no harmony or rhythmic volume of sound, 
as in Tennyson, Swinburne, Milton, and 
Shakspere; but they set themselves to sim- 
ple melodious airs spontaneously. As you 
read them, your feet begin to tap time, — 
onl}^ the music is that of a good rural choir 
rather than that of an orchestra. 

The thought of each poem is generally 
conveyed to the reader's understanding with 
the utmost lucidity. There is no mysticism, 
no obscurity. The story or thought unfolds 
itself naturally, and without fatigue to our 
minds. A great many poems are indeed 
spun out at too great length; but the central 
idea to be conveyed is rarely lost sight of. 

To the list of his virtues as an artist, it 
remains to add his frequent surprising 



212 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

strength. This is naturally most marked in 
the anti-slavery poems. When he wrote 
these, he was in the flush of manhood, his 
soul at a white heat of moral indignation. 
He is occasionally nerved to almost super- 
human effort: it is the battle-axe of Richard 
thundering at the gates of Front de Bceuf. 
For nervous energy, there is nothing in the 
Hebrew prophets finer than such passages 
as these: — 

" Strike home, strong-hearted man ! 
Down to the root 
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel." 

To Ronge. 

" Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil, 

' Lord ! ' I cried in sudden ire, 
' From thy right hand, clothed with thunder. 

Shake the bolted fire ! ' " 

What the Voice Said. . 

" Hands off ! thou tithe-fat plunderer ! play 

No trick of priestcraft here ! 
Back, puny lordling ! darest thou lay 

A hand on Elliott's bier ? 
Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, 

Beneath his feet he trod : 
He knew the locust-swarm that cursed 

The harvest-fields of God. 

" On these pale lips, the smothered thought 
Which England's millions feel, 



THE ARTIST. 213 

A fierce and fearful splendor caught, 

As from his forge the steel. 
Strong-armed as Thor, — a shower of fire 

His smitten anvil flung ; 

God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, — 

He gave them all a tongue ! " 

Elliott. 

" And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong. 

Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod. 
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God 
The blasphemy of wrong." 

The Rendition. 

" All grim and soiled, and brown with tan, 
I saw a Strong One, in his wrath. 
Smiting the godless shrines of man 
Along his path." 

The Reformer. 

As Whittier has grown older, and the 
battles of his life have become (as he 
expressed it to the writer) like " a re- 
membered dream," his genius has grown 
mellow and full of graciousness. His art 
culminated in " Home Ballads," " Snow- 
Bound," and " The Tent on the Beach." 
He has kept longer than most poets the 
lyric glow; only in his later poems it is 
" emotion remembered in tranquillity." 

If asked to name the finest poems of 
Whittier, would not the following instinct- 



214 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ively recur to the mind: "Snow-Bound," 
"Maud Muller," "Barbara Frietchie," "The 
Witch's Daughter/' "Telling the Bees," 
" Skipper Ireson's Ride," " King Volmer 
and Elsie," and "The Tent on the Beach"? 
To these one would like to add several 
exquisite hymns and short secular lyrics. 
But the poems mentioned would probably 
be regarded by most critics as Whittier's 
finest works of art. They merit this dis- 
tinction certainly; and they furnish remark- 
able instances for those who desire to study 
the poet's greater versatility in the ballad 
line, as they are all good representatives of 
his wonderfully long range. 

The foregoing remark must be our cue for 
beginning to pass in review the artistic de- 
ficiencies of Whittier. He has three crazes 
that have nearly ruined the mass of his 
poetry. They are the reform craze, the 
religious craze, and the rhyme craze. Of 
course, as a man, he could not have a super- 
fluity of the first of these; but, as a poet, 
they have been a great injury to him. We 
need not deny that he has taken the manlier 
course in subordinating the artist to the 



THE ARTIST. 21 5 

reformer and preacher; but in estimating his 
poetic merits we ought to regard his work 
from an aosolute point of view. Let us not 
be misunderstood. It is gladly and freely 
conceded that the theory that great poetry 
is not necessarily moral, and that the aim of 
poetry is only to please the senses, is a petty 
and shallow one, and that the true function 
of the great poet is also to bear witness to 
the ideal and noble, to the moral and relig- 
ious. Let us heartily agree with Principal 
Shairp when he says that the true end of 
the poet " is to awaken men to the divine 
side of things; to bear witness to the beauty 
that clothes the outer world, the nobility 
that lies hid, often obscured, in human 
souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected 
truths, for noble but oppressed persons, for 
downtrodden causes, and to make men feel 
that through all outward beauty and all pure 
inward affection God himself is addressing 
them." We may admit all this, and yet find 
fault with the moralizations and homilies 
of Whittier. The poetry of Dante and 
Milton is full of ethical passion, and occa- 
sionally a little sermon is wedged in; yet 
they do not treat us. to endless broadsides 



2l6 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

of preaching, as Whittier does in his earlier 
poems, and in some of his later ones. But 
there is this distinction: the moral in Dante 
and Milton and Shakspere and Emerson 
is so garnitured with beauty that while our 
souls are ennobled our imaginations are 
gratified. But in many of Whittier's poems 
we have the bare skeleton of the moral, 
without the rounded contour and delicate 
tints of the living body of beauty. His 
reform poems have been called stump- 
speeches in verse. His anti-slavery poems 
are, with a few exceptions, devoid of beauty. 
They should have been written in the man- 
ner he himself commends in a review of 
Longfellow's "Evangeline": he should have 
depicted the truth strongly and attractively, 
and left to the reader the censure and the 
indis'nation. Mr. Whittier seems to know 
his peculiar limitations as well as his critics. 
He speaks of himself as one — 

"Whose rhyme 
Beat often Labor's hurried time, 
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife," 

and he has once or twice expressed himself 
in prose in a way that seems to show that be 



THE ARTIST. 21 7 

recoofnizes the artistic mistake in the con- 
struction of his earlier poems. The omis- 
sion of the moral envoi from so many of his 
maturer creations strengthens one in this sur- 
mise. In 1867 Whittier published the fol- 
lowing letter in the New York Nation : 

"To THE Editor of the Nation: 

"I am very well aware that merely personal 
explanations are not likely to be as interest- 
ing to the public as to the parties concerned; 
but I am induced to notice what is either a 
misconception on thy part, or, as is most 
probable, a failure on my own to make my- 
self clearly understood. In the review of 
^The Tent on the Beach' in thy paper of 
last week, I confess I was not a little sur- 
prised to find myself represented as regret- 
ting my life-long and active participation in 
the great conflict which has ended in the 
emancipation of the slave, and that I had 
not devoted myself to merely literary pur- 
suits. In the half-playful lines upon which 
this statement is founded, if I did not feel 
at liberty to boast of my anti-slavery labors 
and magnify my editorial profession, I cer- 
tainly did not mean to underrate them, or 



2l8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

express the shadow of a regret that they 
had occupied so large a Share of m}^ time 
and thought. The simple fact is that I can- 
not be sufficiently thankful to the Divine 
Providence that so early called my attention 
to the great interests of humanity, saving 
me from the poor ambitions and miserable 
jealousies of a selfish pursuit of literary 
reputation. Up to a comparatively recent 
period my v^ritings have been simply episodi- 
cal, something apart from the real object and 
aim of my life; and w^hatever of favor they 
have found vv^ith the public has come to me 
as a grateful surprise rather than as an ex- 
pected rev\^ard. As I have never staked all 
upon the chances of authorship, I have been 
spared the pain of disappointment and the 
temptation to envy those vv^ho, as men of 
letters, deservedly occupy a higher place in 
the popular estimation than I have ever 

aspired to. 

" Truly thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier. 

" Amesbury, 9th, 3d mo., 1867." 

One is reminded by this letter that Words- 
worth once said to Dr. Orville Dewey, of 
Boston, that, "although he was known to 



THE ARTIST, 219 

the world only as a poet, he had given twelve 
hours' thought to the condition and prospects 
of society for one to poetry." In a letter 
read at the third decade meeting of the 
American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadel- 
phia, Mr. Whittier said: ^^ I am not insen- 
sible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps 
too well, the praise and good-will of my 
fellow-men; but I set a higher value on my 
name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Dec- 
laration of 1833 than on the title-page of any 
book." 

In his earlier years our poet was wholly 
ic^norant of the fact that an artist should 
love beauty for its own sake. The simple- 
hearted Quaker and Puritan farmer-youth 
thought it almost a sin to spend his time in 
the cultivation of the beautiful. In his dedi- 
cation of the " Supernaturalism of New 
England " to his sister, he says : — 

" And knowing how my life hath been 
A weary work of tongue and pen, 
A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, 

Thou wilt not chide my turning, 
To con, at times, an idle rhyme. 
To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, 
Or listen, at Life's noon-day chime, 
For the sweet bells of Morning ! " 



2 20 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Poor fellow!" we say at first. And yet 
there is something refreshing and noble in 
such a spirit. It is with difficult}'^ that the 
Germanic mind can bring itself to the study 
of the beautiful as something of co-equal 
worth with the moral. Let us leave that, 
says the Teuton, to the nation whose word 
for love of art is ^^ virtue." How Whittier 
would have abhorred in his youth and early 
manhood the following sentiment b}^ one of 
the Latin race: — 

" The arts require idle, delicate minds, not 
stoics, especially not Puritans, easily shocked 
by dissonance, inclined to sensuous pleasure, 
employing their long periods of leisure, their 
free reveries, in harmoniously arranging, and 
with no other object but enjoyment, forrns, 
colors, and sounds." (T diino;'' ^ E^tg'lish Lit- 
erature, II. 332.) Or the following from 
the same work: — 

" The Puritan destroys the artist, stiffens 
the man, fetters the writer, and leaves of 
artist, man, writer, only a sort of abstract 
being, the slave of a watchword. If a Mil- 
ton springs up among them, it is because, by 
his wide curiosity, his travels, his compre- 
hensive education, and by his independence 



THE ARTIST. 221 

of Spirit, loftily adhered to even against the 
sectarians, Milton passes beyond sectarian- 
ism." (I. 397, 398.) 

Here is another passage from Whittier 
on this same subject. It is almost a pity 
to give it, since the author has apparently 
repudiated the sentiment by omitting the 
lines from his complete works. In the intro- 
duction to " Supernaturalism of New Eng- 
land " he says: — 

"If in some few instances, like Burns in 
view of his national thistle, I have — 

'Turned my weeding-hook aside, 
And spared the symbol dear,' 

I have been influenced by the comparatively 
innocent nature and simple poetic beauty of 
the traditions in question; yet not even for 
the sake of poetry and romance would I 
confirm in any mind a pernicious credulity, 
or seek to absolve myself from that stern 
duty which the true man owes to his genera- 
tion, to expose error whenever and wherever 
he finds it." 

One more instance. In one of his sketches 
he is describing an old custom called " Pope 
Night," which has been kept up in the Mer- 



22 2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

rimack Valley in unbroken sequence from 
the time of the Guy Fawkes plot. The plot 
is commemorated by bonfires and effigies of 
the Pope and others, and Whittier quotes 
these lines of a song which is sung on the 
occasion: — 

" Look here ! from Rome 
The Pope has come, 

That fiery serpent dire ; 
Here's the Pope that we have got, 
The old promoter of the plot ; 
We'll stick a pitchfork in his back, 
And throw him in the fire." 

Mr. Whittier was so broad-minded in re- 
gard to all matters pertaining to true growth, 
and withal so conscientious a student of the 
best versification, that is, the most natural, 
that we soon find him striving, at least, to 
free himself from all these minor faults. 

Consequently his mannerisms more and 
more drop away. He is a born preacher. 
And presently we see in him a decided 
advance toward the delineation of what is 
simply true and beautiful, without the ap- 
preciable pause by the way, " to point a 
moral and adorn a tale." For a preacher is 
not a poet; and true poetic fire must be 



THE ARTIST. 



223 



dimmed at once, and the divine afflatus be 
a lack-lustre thing, when appeals by pious 
exhortation are brought in to fill out rhyme 
and metre. Many of Whittier's purely reli- 
gious poems are the most exquisite and 
beautiful ever written. The tender feeling, 
the warm-hearted trustfulness, and the rev- 
erent touch of his hymns speak directly to 
our hearts. The prayer-hymn at the close 
of "The Brew^ing of Soma" ("Dear Lord 
and Father of mankind," etc.), and such 
poems as "At Last" and "The Wish of 
To-day," are unsurpassed in sacred song. 
Some one has said that in Whittier's books 
we rarely meet with ideas expressed in such 
perfection and idiosyncrasy of manner that 
ever afterward the same ideas must recur to 
our minds in the words of this author and 
no other; that is to say, there are few dicta, 
few portable and universally-quoted passages 
in his wTitings. But exception must be 
made in favor of his best hymns. Their 
stanzas haunt the mind with their beauty, 
and you are obliged to learn them by heart 
before you can have peace. These purely 
religious productions show Whittier's work 
at high-water mark, and as lonoj as the 



22 A JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

English language is spoken, they will be 
employed by those who require a vehicle for 
thought, by which the true worship may be 
served. There is only one poet in the world 
whose works will not suffer by reading his 
entire poetical productions in consecutive 
perusal, and that is Shakspere. Poetry 
should be read solely for the refreshment 
and elevation of the mind, and only when 
one's mood requires it. Unquestionably, if 
so read, all mannerisms that Mr. Whittier 
might have been accused of at an early 
stage in his authorship would not appear so 
conspicuous. 

One of the mannerisms of our poet is his 
inclination toward the four-foot line with 
consecutive or alternate rhymes. Almost 
all of Burns's poetry is written as just de- 
scribed ; and it is evident Mr. Whittier's ear 
was naturally inclined to it, from his early 
love for Burns, his patron saint, as it were, 
in those then untrodden fields. An ear edu- 
cated by Tennyson, and the other Victo- 
rian poets, might be unable to grasp even 
the beauty of thought unless conveyed by 
their especial methods. One is pleased 
when rhymes are so masked, so subtly inter- 



THE ARTIST. 



2^5 



twined, and parted 'by intervening lines, that 
each shall seem like a delicate echo of 
that which preceded it, — the assonance just 
remembered, and no more. 

A minor mannerism of Whittier is his 
frequent use of the present participle in ing, 
with the verb to be ; "is flowing," "is shin- 
ing," etc. The jingle of the ing evidently 
caught the poet's rhyme-loving ear, and 
sometimes it really has a very pretty effect. 
Certain it is he has used it with great skill, 
and given his readers insight into another 
of his versatile gifts. 

As to the originality of our poet there 
is this to be said : He has a distinctively 
national spirit or vision ; he is democratic 
in his feelings, and treats of indigenous 
subjects. His vehicle, his poetic forms and 
handling, he has treated as minor subjects 
for thought. He is democratic, not so power- 
fully and broadly as Whitman, but more un- 
affectedly and sincerely. He has not the 
magnificent prophetic vision, or Vorstellmtgs- 
kraft, of Whitman, any more than he has the 
crushing mastodon-steps of Whitman's pon- 
derous rhythm. But he has thrown himself 



2 26 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

with trembling ardor and patriotism, into 
the life of his country. It is this fresh, 
New-World spirit that entitles him to be 
called original : he is non-European. He 
has not travelled much, nor mingled in the 
seething currents of Western and Southern 
life ; but his strong sympathy has gone forth 
over the entire land. He also reflects faith- 
fully the quiet scenes of his own Merrimack 
Valley. From his descriptions of these 
scenes we receive the impression of fresh- 
ness and originality; and we recognize a 
master hand that can so portray them as to 
make us see the same places, though only 
on the printed page. 

One regrets using a critical pen at all in 
discussing such a writer. It would be un- 
gracious to call to a severe account one who 
places the most modest estimate upon his 
own work, and who has distinctly stated 
that, up to "about the year 1865, his writ- 
ings were simply episodical, something apart 
from the real object and aim of [his] life." 
It is hard to criticise severely one who is 
unjust to himself through excess of diffident 
humility. In the exquisite Proem to his 



THE ARTIST. 



227 



complete poems he would fain persuade us 
that he cannot breathe such notes as those 
of — 

" The old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days, 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew." 

But not so, O gentle minstrel of Essex ! 
There are poems of thine which thousands 
prefer to the best of Spenser's or Sidney's, 
and which will continue to exist as long as 
beauty is its own excuse for being. Thou 
too hast been in Paradise, to fetch thence 
armfuls of dewy roses for our delight ; not 
mounting thither by the "stairway of sur- 
prise," but along the common highway of 
daily duty and noble endeavor, unmindful 
of the dust and heat and chafing burdens, 
but singing aloud thy songs of lofty cheer, 
all magically intertwined with pictures of 
wayside flowers, and the homely beauty of 
lowliest things. And thou hast imparted to 
us the " groping of the keys of the heavenly 
harmonies," that no one who loves thy songs, 
ever loses from his life. 



2 28 POEMS SERIATIM. 



CHAPTER III. 

POEMS SERIATIM. 

Among the three or four critical papers 
on Whittier that have up to this time been 
pubHshed, there is one that is marked by 
exceptional vigor; namely, the admirable 
philosophical anal3^sis by Mr. David A. 
Wasson, published in t\\Q Atlantic Monthly 
for March, 1864. The author gladly ac- 
knowledges his indebtedness to this paper 
for several things, — chiefly for its keen 
ape^yti into the nature of Whittier's genius, 
and the proper psychological grouping of 
his poems. Mr. Wasson's classification can 
hardly be improved upon in its general 
features. He divides the literary life of the 
poet into three epochs, — The Struggle for 
Life, The Culture Epoch, and The Epoch 
of Poetic Realism; and between each of 
these he places transitional periods. The 
lines of his classification, however, are too 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 2 2g 

sharply drawn, and the epochs seem too 
minutely subdivided. Moreover, the pres- 
ent w^riter v^ould add an introductory or 
preparatory period; in other respects it 
seems to him that the grouping is as correct 
as such mathematical measurements of a 
poet's development can be. Suppose w^e 
group and name the poet's mental epochs 
as fo'llow^s: — 

First Period. — Introductory. ^830-1833. 

During this quiet, purely literary epoch, 
Whittier published " Legends of New^ Eng- 
land" and "Moll Pitcher," and edited the 
" Literary Remains of Brainard." 

Second Period. — Storm and Stress. 1833-1853. 

The beginning of this period was marked 
by the publication of "Justice and Expedi- 
ency," and during its continuance were 
written most of the anti-slavery productions, 
the Indian poems, many legendary lays and 
prose pieces, religious lyrics, and "Songs 
of Labor." The latter, being partiall}^ free 
from didacticism, leads naturally up to the 
third period. 



230 POEMS SERIATIM. 

Third Period. — Transition. 1853-1860 
This Mr. Wasson calls the epoch of cul- 
ture and religious doubt, the central poems 
of which are " Chapel of the Hermits " and 
"Questions of Life." We now begin to 
see a love of art for art's sake, and there 
are fewer moral stump-speeches. The in- 
dignation of the reformer is giving place 
to the calm repose of the artist. And such 
ballads as " Mary Garvin '' and " Maud 
Muller " form the introduction to the cul- 
minating (or fourth) epoch in the poet's 
creative life. 

Fourth Period. — Religious and Artistic Repose. 
1860- 

During this time have been written nearly 
all the author's great works, namely, his 
beautiful ballads, as well as "Snow-Bound" 
and "The Tent on the Beach." The liter- 
ary style is now mature. The beautiful is 
sought for its own sake, both in nature and 
in lowly life. It is a season of trust and 
naive simplicity. 

The works produced during the Intro- 
ductory period have already been discussed 
in the biographical portion of this volume. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 23 1 

Before passing rapidly in review some of 
the more important detached poems of the 
three latter periods (reserving a number of 
poems for consideration by groups), we 
must be allowed to offer a few criticisms 
on the earlier poems in general, meaning 
by this the ones published previous to the 
^' Songs of Labor" in 1850. These earlier 
productions are to be commended chiefly 
for two things: (i) the subjects are drawn 
from original and native sources, and (2) the 
slavery poems are full of moral stamina 
and fiery indignation at oppression. There 
are single poems of great merit and beauty. 
But the style of most of them is unoriginal, 
being merely an echo of that of the English 
Lake School. Whittier's poetical develop- 
ment has been a steady growth. His genius 
matured late, and in his early poems there 
is little promise of the exquisite work of 
his riper years, unless it is a distinct indi- 
cation of his rare power of telling a story 
in verse. It must be remembered that 
when Whittier began to write, American 
literature had yet to be created. There 
was not a single great American poem, with 
the exception of Bryant's " Thanatopsis." 



232 POEMS SERIATIM. 

The prominent poets of that time — Percival, 
Brainard, Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Hillhouse, 
Pierpont, Dana, Sprague — are all forgotten 
now. The breath of immortality was not 
upon anything they wrote. A national litera- 
ture is a thing of slow growth. Every writer 
is insensibly influenced b}^ the intellectual 
tone of his neighbors and contemporaries. 
Judged in the light of his early disadvan- 
tages, and estimated by the standard of that 
time, Whittier's first essays are deserving 
of much credit, and they have had a distinct 
sesthetic and moral value in the develop- 
ment of American literature and the Ameri- 
can character. But their deficiencies are 
very grave. There is a good deal of com- 
monplace, and much extravagance of rhet- 
oric. There are a great many " Lines " 
called forth by circumstances not at all 
poetical in their suggestions. Emotion and 
rhyme and commonplace incident are not 
enough to make a poem. One cannot em- 
balm the memory of all one's friends in 
verse. In casting about for an explanation 
of the circumstance that our poet has so 
often chosen tame and uninspiring themes 
for his poems, we reach the conclusion that 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 233 

It is due to his solitary and uneventful life, 
and to the subdued and art-chilling atmos- 
phere of his Quaker religion. You get, at 
any rate, no true impression of the intellec- 
tual breadth of the poet's mind from many 
of the productions of the period we are con- 
sidering: the theme is too weak to support 
the poetical structure reared upon it. The 
poems and essays are written by one un- 
toughened and unvitalized by varied and 
cheerful intercourse with men and affairs, a 
state of mind that was changed considerably 
as Mr. Whittier emerged from his semi- 
obscurity into a larger comprehension of his 
own powers. 

A minor fault of this period is the too fre- 
quent interruption of explanatory notes, that 
break and mar the free-flowing melody of 
versified thought. We find the same blem- 
ish in Longfellow's early work 

At the opening of the complete poetical 
works of Whittier stand two long Indian 
poems, with their war-paint and blood — 
like scarlet maples at the entrance of an 
aboriginal forest. The first of these poems, 
*' Mogg Megone," is every way inferior to 



2^A POEMS SERIATIM. 

the second, or " The Bridal of Pennacook." 
" Moo-o" Megone " was pubhshed in 1836, 
and "The Bridal of Pennacook" in 1848. 
Mr. Whittier half apologizes for retaining 
the former of these in his complete works. 
There is, amongst much that, eliminated, 
midit not be missed, a certain fresh and 
realistic diction, or nomenclature. It is pict- 
uresque, in portions somewhat dramatic and 
thrilling, and now is valuable as a link be- 
tween the early stage of his authorship and 
the advanced culture of later years. In style 
it is an echo of Scott's " Lady of the Lake " 
or " Marmion." 

In " The Bridal of Pennacook " we have 
an Indian idyl of unquestionable power and 
beauty, a descriptive poem full of the cool, 
mossy sweetness of mountain landscapes, 
and although too artificial and subjective 
for a poem of primitive life, yet saturated 
with the imagery of the wigwam and the 
forest. A favorite article of food with the 
Indians of Northern Ohio was dried bear's- 
meat dipped in maple syrup. There is a 
savor of the like ferity and sweetness in this 
poem. It is almost wholly free from the 
strongly-marked faults of " Mogg Megone," 



JOHN GREEN-LEAF WHITTIER. 235 

and (that test of all tests) it is pleasant 
reading. Its two cardinal defects are lack 
of simplicity of treatment, and tenuity or 
triviality of the subject, or plot. The story 
is sometimes lost sight of in a jungle of 
verbiage and description. In contrasting 
such a poem with " Hiawatha," we see the 
wisdom of Longfellow in choosing an an- 
tique vehicle, or rhythmic style. Aborigines 
have a dialect of their own; the sentences 
of an Indian brave being as abrupt and 
sharp as the wild screams of an eagle. The 
set speeches of the North American Indians 
are always full of divers stock metaphors 
about natural scenery, wild animals, totems, 
and spirits, and are so different from those 
of civilized life that an expert can instantly 
detect a forgery or an imitation, so that 
all incongruities that attribute the complex 
and refined emotions of civilized life to the 
savage, seriously mar the pleasure of the 
reader. The descriptions of natural scenery 
in these Indian legends of Mr. Whittier's 
are fine, as all such writing by his facile pen 
was ever felicitous. And by virtue of this 
descriptive power, these idyls will be held 
long in grateful remembrance. 



236 POEMS SERIATIM, 

In plan the poem is like the ^^ Decam- 
eron," the " Princess/' the " Canterbury 
Tales," and " Tales of a Wayside Inn." 
The different portions are supposed to be 
related by five persons, — a lawyer, a clergy- 
man, a merchant and his daughter, and the 
poet, — who are all sight-seeing in the White 
Mountains. The opening description, in 
blank verse, conveys a vague but not very 
powerful impression of sublimity. The 
musical nomenclature of the red aborigines 
is finely handled, and such w^ords as Penna- 
cook, Babboosuck, Contoocook, Bashaba, 
and Weetamoo chime out here and there 
along the pages with as silvery a sweetness 
as the Tuscan words in Macaulay's " Lays." 
At the wedding of Weetamoo we have — 

" Pike and perch from the Suncook taken, 
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken, 
Cranberries picked from the Squamscot bog, 
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog : 

And, drawn from that great stone vase* which stands 
In the river scooped by a spirit's hands, 
Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, 
Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn." 

The following stanza on the heroine, 
Weetamoo, is a fine one: — 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 237 

" Child of the forest ! — strong and free, 
SUght-robed, with loosely flowing hair, 
She swam the lake, or climbed the tree, 

Or struck the flying bird in air. 
O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon 

Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way ; 
And, dazzling in the summer noon, 
The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of 
spray ! " 

The " Song of Indian Women," at the 
close of " The Bridal of Pennacook," is ad- 
mirable for melody, weird and wild beauty, 
and natm*alness. It is a lament for the lost 
Weetamoo, who, unfortunate in her married 
life, has committed suicide by sailing over 
the rapids in her canoe: — 

"The Dark Eye has left us. 
The Spring-bird has flown ; 
On the pathway of spirits 
She wanders alone. 
The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore, — 
Mat woiick kunna-monee ! — We hear it no more! 

O mighty Sowanna ! 

Thy gateways unfold, 
From thy wigwams of sunset 
Lift curtains of gold ! 
Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er, — 
Mat wonck kiuina-7nonee I — We see her no more ! " 



238 



POEMS SERIATIM. 



There are two minor Indian poems by 
Whittier that have the true ring* namely, 
the "Truce of Piscataqua" and "Funeral 
Tree of the Sokokis." The latter well- 
known poem is pitched in as high and sol- 
emn a ke}'^ as Platen's "Grab im Busento," 
a poem similar in theme to Whittier's: — 

" They heave the stubborn trunk aside, 
The firm roots from the earth divide, — 
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide. 

And there the fallen chief is laid. 
In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed. 
And girded with his wampum-braid." 

Whittier, 

" In der wogenleeren Hohlung wiihlten sie empor die 

Erde, 
Senkten tief hinein den Leichnam, mit der Riistung 

auf dem Pferde. 
Deckten dann mit Erde wieder ihn und seine stolze 

Habe." 

Plat 671. 

In the empty river-bottom hurriedly they dug the death- 
pit, 

Deep therein they sank the hero with his armor and his 
war-steed, 

Covered then with earth and darkness him and all his 
splendid trappings. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 239 

When the reader, who has worked gloom- 
ily along through Whittier's anti-slavery and 
miscellaneous poems, reaches the " Songs 
of Labor," he feels at once the breath of a 
fresher spirit, — as a traveller who has been 
toiling for weary leagues through sandy 
deserts bares his brow with delight to the 
coolness and shade of a green forest through 
whose thick roof of leaves the garish sun- 
light scarcely sifts. We feel that in these 
poems a new departure has been made. 
The wrath of the reformer has expended 
itself, and the poet now returns, with mind 
elevated and more tensely keyed by his 
moral warfare, to the study of the beautiful 
in native themes and in homely life. ^^ The 
Shipbuilders," "The Shoemakers," "The 
Fishermen," and " The Huskers " are genu- 
ine songs; and more shame to the crafts- 
men celebrated if they do not get them 
set to music, and sing them while at their 
work. One cannot help feeling that Walt 
Whitman's call for some one to make 
songs for American laborers had already 
been met in a goodly degree by these 
spirited " Songs of Labor." What work- 
man would not be alad to carol such 



240 POEMS SERIATIM. 

Stanzas as the following, if they were set to 
popular airs ? 

" Hurrah ! the seaward breezes 

Sweep down the bay amain ; 
Heave up, my lads, the anchor ! 

Run up the sail again ! 
Leave to the lubber landsmen 

The rail-car and the steed : 
The stars of heaven shall guide us, 

The breath of heaven shall speed." 

The Fishermen- 

" Ho ! workers of the old time styled 

The Gentle Craft of Leather ! 
Young brothers of the ancient guild, 

Stand forth once more together ! 
Call out again your long array, 

In the olden merry manner ! 
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, 

Fling out your blazoned banner ! 

Rap, rap ! upon the well-worn stone 

How falls the polished hammer ! 
Rap, rap ! the measured sound has grown 

A quick and merry clamor. 
Now shape the sole ! now deftly curl 

The glossy vamp around it, 
And bless the while the bright-eyed girl 

Whose gentle fingers bound it ! " 

The Shoemakers. 

The publication of " The Chapel of the 
Hermits" and "Questions of Life," in 1853, 



JOHN GREENLEAF IVHITTIER. 24 1 

marks (as has been said) the period of cul- 
ture and of religious doubt, — doubt which 
ended in trust. In this period we have 
such genuine undidactic poems as " The 
Barefoot Boy." 

" Blessings on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace." 

Also, such fine poems as " Flowers in Win- 
ter" and "To My Old Schoolmaster;" as 
well as the excellent ballads, "Maud Mul- 
ler," " Kathleen," and " Mary Garvin." 

The period in Whittier's life from about 
1858 to 1868 we may call the Ballad Dec- 
ade,* for within this time were produced most 
of his immortal ballads. We say immor- 
tal, believing that if all else that he has 
written shall perish, his finest ballads will 
carry his name down to a remote posterity. 

* The beginning of this decade nearly coincides with the 
fourth or final period in our classification, upon the consider- 
ation of which we shall now enter. 
IG 



242 POEMS SERIATIM. 

'^The Tent on the Beach" is mainly a series 
of ballads; and "Snow-Bound," although 
not a ballad, is still a narrative poem closely 
allied to that species of poetry, the differ- 
ence between a ballad and an idyl being 
that one is made to be sung and the other 
to be read: both narrate events as they 
occur, and leave to the reader all sentiment 
and reflection. 

The finest ballads of Whittier have the 
power of keeping us in breathless sus- 
pense of interest until the denoueme7it or 
the catastrophe, as the case may be. The 
popularity of " Maud Muller " is well de- 
served. What a rich and mellow translu- 
cence it has! How it appeals to the 
universal heart ! And yet "The Witch's 
Daughter " and " Telling the Bees " are 
more exquisite creations than " Maud Mul- 
ler": they have a spontaneity, a subtle 
pathos, a sublimated sweetness of despair 
that take hold of the very heart-strings, and 
thus deal with deeper emotions than such 
light, objective ballads as " Maud Muller " 
and " Skipper Ireson's Ride." But the sur- 
face grace of the two latter have of course 



' JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 243 

made them the more popular, just as the 
" Scarlet Letter " finds greater favor with 
most people than does " The House of the 
Seven Gables," although Hawthorne rightly 
thought the "Seven Gables" to be his finest 
and subtlest work. 

Mark the Chaucerian freshness of the 
•opening stanzas of " The Witch's Daugh- 
ter " : — 

" It was the pleasant harvest time, 

When cellar-bins are closely stowed, 
And garrets bend beneath their load, 

And the old swallow-haunted barns — 
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 
Through which the moted sunlight streams. 

And winds blow freshly in, to shake 
The red plumes of the roosted cocks. 
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks — 

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, 
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves. 
From their low scaffolds to their eaves." 

A companion ballad to "The Witch's 
Daughter" is "The Witch of Wenham," 
a poem almost equal to it in merit, and like 
it ending happily. These ballads do not 



244 POEMS SERIATIM. 

quite attain the almost supernatural sim- 
plicity of Wordsworth's " Lucy Gray " and 
"We are Seven"; but they possess an 
equal interest, excited by the same poetical 
qualities. " Telling the Bees," however, 
seems to the writer as purely Words- 
worthian as anything Wordsworth ever 
wrote : — 

" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 
Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " 

How the tears spring to the eyes in read- 
ing this immortal little poem! The bee- 
hives ranged in the garden, the sun "tan- 
gling his wings of fire in the trees," the 
dog whining low, the old man " with his 
cane to his chin," — we all know the scene: 
its every feature appeals to our sympathies 
and associations. 

"The Double-headed Snake of Newbury" 
is a whimsical story, in which the poet 
waxes right merry as he relates how — 

" Far and wide the tale was told, 
Like a snowball growing while it rolled. 
The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry ; 
And it served, in the worthy minister's eye, 
To paint the primitive serpent by. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 245 

Cotton Mather came galloping down 

All the way to Newbury town, 

With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, 

And his marvellous inkhorn at his side ; 

Stirring the while in the shallow pool 

Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, 

To garnish the story, with here a streak 

Of Latin, and there another of Greek : 

And the tales he heard and the notes he took, 

Behold ! are they not in his Wonder-Book ? " 

A word about Whittier's " Prophecy of 
Samuel Sewall." It seems that old Judge 
Sewall made the prophecies of the Bible his 
favorite study. One of his ideas was that 
America was to be the site of the New Jeru- 
salem. Toward the end of his book entitled 
" Phenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica; . . . 
or ... a Description of the New Heaven 
as it makes to those who stand upon the 
New Earth" (1697), he gives utterance to 
the triumphant prophecy that forms the sub- 
ject of Whittier's poem. His language is 
so quaint that the reader will like to see the 
passage in Sewall's own words : — 

"As long as Plum Island shall faithfully 
keep the commanded post, notwithstanding 
all the hectoring words and hard blows of 



246 POEMS SERIATIM. 

the proud and boisterous ocean; as long as 
any salmon or sturgeon shall swim in the 
streams of Merrimac, or any perch or pick- 
erel in Crane Pond; as long as the sea-fowl 
shall know the time of their coming, and 
not neglect seasonably, to visit the places 
of their acquaintance; as long as any cattle 
shall be fed with the grass growing in 
the meadows, which do humbly bow down 
themselves before Turkey Hill; as long as 
any sheep shall walk upon Old-Town Hills, 
and shall from thence pleasantly look down 
upon the River Parker, and the fruitful 
marshes lying beneath; as long as any free 
and harmless doves shall find a white oak 
or other tree within the township, to perch, 
or feed, or build a careless nest upon, and 
shall voluntarily present themselves to per- 
form the office of gleaners after barley-har- 
vest; as long as Nature shall not grow old 
and dote, but shall constantly remember to 
give the rows of Indian corn their educa- 
tion by pairs; so long shall Christians be 
born there, and being first made meet, shall 
from thence be translated to be made par- 
takers of the inheritance of the saints in 
light." 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 247 

Moses Coit Tyler, in his " History of 
American Literature," II., p. 102 (note), 
says: "Whittier speaks of Newbury as 
Sewall's ^ native town,' but Sewall was 
born at Horton, England. He also de- 
scribes Sewall as an "^ old man,' propped on 
his staff of age when he made this proph- 
ecy; but Sewall was then forty-five years 
old." 

There are two or three other ballads in 
which Whittier is said to have made histori- 
cal blunders. It really does not seem of 
much importance whether he did or did not 
get the precise facts in each case. The 
important point is that he made beautiful 
ballads. But it will be right to give, in 
brief, the objections that have been brought 
against " Skipper Ireson's Ride " and " Bar- 
bara Frietchie." " The King's Missive " 
will be discussed in another place. 

Apropos of Skipper Ireson, Mr. John W. 
Chadwick has spoken as follows in Har- 
-pe^^s Monthly for July, 1874: — 

" In one of the queerest corners of the 
town [Marblehead], there stands a house 



248 POEMS SERIATIM. 

as modest as the Lee house was magnifi- 
cent. So long as he lived it was the home 
of ^ Old Flood Oirson/ whose name and 
fame have gone farther and fared worse 
than any other fact or fancy connected with 
his native town. Plain, honest folk don't 
know about poetic license, and I have often 
heard the poet's conduct in the matter of 
Skipper Ireson's ride characterized with 
profane severity. He unwittingly departed 
from the truth in various particulars. The 
wreck did not, as the ballad recites, contain 
any of ^his own town's-people.' Moreover, 
four of those it did contain were saved by 
a whale-boat from Provincetown. It was 
off Cape Cod, and not in Chaleur Bay, that 
the wreck was deserted; and the desertion 
was in this wise: It was in the night that 
the wreck was discovered. In the darkness 
and the heavy sea it was impossible to give 
assistance. When the skipper went below, 
he ordered the watch to lie by the wreck 
till ^doming'; but the watch wilfully dis- 
obeyed, and afterward, to shield them- 
selves, laid all the blame upon the skipper. 
Then came the tarring and feathering. The 
women, whose role in the ballad is so strik- 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 249 

jng, had nothing to do with it. The vehicle 
was not a cart, but a dory; and the skipper, 
instead of being contrite, said, ^ I thank you 
for your ride.' I asked one of the skipper's 
contemporaries what the effect was on the 
skipper. ^ Cowed him to death,' said he, 
^ cowed him to death.' He went skipper 
again the next year, but never afterward. 
He had been dead only a year or two when 
Whittier's ballad appeared. His real name 
was not Floyd, as Whittier supposes, but Ben- 
jamin, ^ Flood' being one of those nicknames 
that were not the exception, but the rule, in 
the old fishing-days. For many years before 
his death the old man earned a precarious 
living by dory-fishing in the bay, and selling 
his daily catch from a wheelbarrow. When 
old age and blindness overtook him, and his 
last trip was made, his dory was hauled up 
into the lane before his house, and there 
went to rot and ruin. . . . The hoarse re- 
frain of Whittier's ballad is the best-known 
example of the once famous Marblehead 
dialect, and it is not a bad one. To what 
extent this dialect was peculiar to Marble- 
head it might be difficult to determine. 
Largely, no doubt, it was inherited from 



250 POEMS SERIATIM. 

English ancestors. Its principal delight 
consisted in pronouncing o for a, and a 
for o. For example, if an old-fashioned 
Marbleheader wished to say he ^ was born 
in a barn,' he would say, ^ I was barn in a 
born.' The e was also turned into a^ and 
even into <?, and the v into %v. ^ That ves- 
sel's stern' became ^that wessel's starn,' or 
^ storn.' I remember a schoolboy declaim- 
ing from Shakspere, ' Thou little walliant, 
great in willany.' There was a great deal 
of shortening. The fine name Crownin- 
shield became Grounsel, and Florence be- 
came Flurry, and a Frenchman named 
Blancpied found himself changed into 
Blumpy. Endings in une and ing were 
alike changed into i7i. Misfortune was mis- 
fartin', and fishing was always fishin'. There 
were words peculiar to the place. One of 
these was planchment for ceiling. Crim 
was another, meaning to shudder with cold, 
and there was an adjective, crimmy. Still 
another was ditch, meaning to stick badly, 
surely an onomatopoetic word that should 
be naturalized before it is too late. Some 
of the swearing, too, was neither by the 
throne nor footstool, such as "^Dahst my 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 25 I 

eyes! ' and ^Godfrey darmints.' The ancient 
dialect in all its purity is now seldom used. 
It crops out here and there sometimes where 
least expected, and occasionally one meets 
with some old veteran whose speech has 
lost none of the ancient savor." 

Now for "Barbara Frietchie." The inci- 
dent of the poem was given to Whittier by 
the novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, 
whose letter we append. The philanthro- 
pist, Dorothea Dix, investigated the case in 
Frederick, and she says that Barbara did 
wave the flag, etc. An army officer also 
made affidavit of the truth of the lines. A 
young Southern soldier has declared that 
he was present, and that his was one of the 
shots that hit the flagstaff ! 

On the other side are Samuel Tyler and 
Jacob Engelbrecht, the latter an old and 
greatly respected citizen of Frederick, and 
living directly opposite Barbara's house. 
Jacob wrote to the Baltimore Stni, saying 
that Stonewall Jackson's corps marched 
through another street, and did not approach 
Dame Frietchie's house at all. Lee's column 
did pass it, he says ; but he, who stood' 



21-2 POEMS SERIATIM. 

watching at his window, saw no flag what- 
ever at her window. 

He says that when ten days later General 
McClellan passed through the town she did 
exhibit a flag. 

Finally, General Jubal Early comes upon 
the witness stand, and testifies that as the 
Southern troops passed through Frederick, 
there were only two cases of waving of 
Union flags; one of these was by a little 
girl, about ten years old, who stood on the 
platform of a house and waved incessantly 
a little "candy flag," and cried in a dull, 
monotonous voice : " Hurrah for the Stars 
and Stripes ! Down with the Stars and 
Bars ! " No one molested her. The other 
case was that of a coarse, slovenly-looking 
woman, who rushed up to the entrance of 
an alley and waved a dirty United States 
flag. 

" The Pipes at Lucknow " is a poem full 
of martial fire and lyric rush, — the subject 
a capital one for a poet. A little band of 
English, besieged in a town in the heart of 
India, and full of despair, hear in the dis- 
tance the sweetest sound that ever fell upon 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 253 

their ears, namely, the shrill pibroch of the 
MacGregor Clan ; and — 



" When the far-off dust-cloud 
To plaided legions grew, 
Full tenderly and blithesomely 
The pipes of rescue blew ! " 



Another group of ballads comprises " Cob- 
bler Keezar's Vision," "Amy Wentworth," 
and " The Countess." 

In the first of these, old Cobbler Keezar, 
of the early Puritan times, by virtue of a 
mystic lapstone, sees a vision of our age 
of religious tolerance, and wonders greatly 
thereat : — 



" Keezar sat on the hillside 
Upon his cobbler's form, 
With a pan of coals on either hand 
To keep his waxed-ends warm. 

And there, in the golden weather, 

He stitched and hammered and sung; 

In the brook he moistened his leather. 
In the pewter mug his tongue." 

The ballad of " Amy Wentworth " treats 
of the same subject as " Among The Hills," 



254 



POEMS SERIATIM. 



namely, a superior woman, of the white- 
handed caste, falling in love with and mar- 
rying a broad-shouldered, brown-handed 
hero, with a right manly heart and brain. 

Many and many a poem of Whittier's is 
spoiled by its too great length, — a thing 
that is fatal in a lyric. The long prelude 
to "Amy Wentworth " should have been 
omitted. 



The scene of the lovely poem entitled 
" The Countess " is laid in Rocks Village, 
a part of East Haverhill, and lying on the 
Merrimack, where — 

" The river's steel-blue crescent curves 
To meet, in ebb and flow, 
The single broken wharf that serves 
For sloop and gundelow. 

With salt sea-scents along its shores 

The heavy hay-boats crawl, 
The long antennae of their oars 

In lazy rise and fall. 

Along the gray abutment's wall 

The idle shad-net dries ; 
The toll-man in his cobbler's stall 

Sits smoking with closed eyes." 

Whittier dedicates his poem to his father's 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 255 

family physician, Elias Weld, of Rocks 
Village. The story which forms the subject 
of the poem is a romantic one, and exqui- 
sitely has our poet embalmed it in verse. 
From a sketch by Rebecca I. Davis, of East 
Haverhill, the following facts relating to the 
personages that figure in the poem have 
been culled : — 

The Countess was Miss Mary Ingalls, 
daughter of Henry and Abigail Ingalls, of 
Rocks Village. She was born in 1786, 
and is still remembered by a few old inhab- 
itants as a young girl of remarkable beauty. 
She was of medium height, had long golden 
curls, violet eyes, fair complexion, and rosy 
cheeks, and was exceedingly modest and 
lovable. It was in the year 1806 that a little 
company of French exiles fled from the 
Island of Guadaloupe on account of a bloody 
rebellion or uprising of the inhabitants. 
Among the fugitives were Count Francis de 
Vipart and Joseph Rochemont de Poyen. 
The company reached Newburyport. The 
two gentlemen just mentioned settled at 
Rocks Village, and both married there. 
Mary Ingalls was only a laborer's daughter, 
and of course her marriage with the count 



256 POEMS SERIATIM. 

created a sensation in the simple, rustic 
community. The count was a pleasant, 
stately man, and a fine violinist. The bridal 
dress, says Miss Davis, w^as of a pink satin, 
w^ith an overdress of w^hite lace; her slip- 
pers also were of white satin. The count 
delighted to lavish upon her the richest ap- 
parel, yet nothing spoiled the sweet modesty 
of her disposition. After one short year of 
happy married life the lovely wife died. 
Assiduous attention to a sick mother had 
brought on consumption. In the village 
God's-acre her gray tombstone is already 
covered with moss. 

The count returned to his native island 
overwhelmed with grief In after years, 
however, he married again. When he died 
he was interred in the famil}' burial-place 
of the De Viparts at Bordeaux. He left 
several children. 

Mr. Stedman, in his fine synthetic survey of 
American poetry, published in The Century^ 
has remarked that most of our early poetry 
and painting is full of landscape. The 
loveliest season in America is the autumn, 
when, as Whittier beautifully says, the woods 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 257 

"wear their robes of praise, the south winds 
softly sigh," — 

" And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
Melt down the amber sky." 

We have plenty of idyls of autumn color, 
like Buchanan Read's " Closing Scene," and 
portions of Longfellow's " Hiawatha." But 
American winter landscapes are as poetical 
as those of autumn."^ It is probable that 

* What is the subtle fascination that lurks in such bits of 
winter poetry as the following, collected by the writer out 
of his reading? 

" Yesterday the sullen year 
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly." — Gray. 

" All winter drives along the darkened air." — Thomson. 

" High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached 

The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch ; 

Mute hangs the hooded bell ; the tombs lie buried." — Grahame. 

"Alas! alas! thou snow-smitten wood of 
Troy, and mountains of Ida." — Sophocles. 

" hard, dull bitterness of cold." — VVhittier. 

" And in the narrow house o' death 
Let winter round me rave." — Biirjis. 

" The mesmerizer, Snow, 
With his hand's first sweep 
Put the earth to sleep." — Robert Browning. 

" And the cakfed snow is shuffled 
From the plough-boy's heavy shoon." — Keats. 
17 



258 



POEMS SERIATIM. 



the scarcity of snow-idyls hitherto is due to 
the supposed cheerlessness of the snow. 
But with the rapid multiplication of winter 
comforts, our nature-worship is cautiously 
broadenino; so as to include even the stern 
beauty of winter. There are already a good 
many signs of this in literature. We have 
had, of late, lovely little snow-and-winter 
vignettes in prose by John Burroughs of New 
York, and Edith Thomas of Ohio; and there 
is plenty of room for further study of winter 
in other regions of the United States. The 
most delicate bit of realistic winter poetry in 
literature is Emerson's ^^ Snow-Storm." Mr. 
Whittier is an ardent admirer of that writer 
— as what poet is not? — and his own pro- 
ductions show frequent traces of Emersonian- 
isms. He has prefixed to " Snow-Bound " 
a quotation from the " Snow-Storm," and 
there can scarcely be a doubt that to the 
countless obligations we all owe Emerson 
must be added this: that he inspired the 
writing of Whittier's finest poem, and the 
best idyl of American rural life. It is too 
complex and diffusive fully to equal in 
artistic purity and plastic proportion the 
''Cotter's Saturday Night" of Burns; but it 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 259 

is much richer than that poem in fehcitous 
single epithets, \vhich, like little wicket 
doors, open up to the eye of memory many 
a long-forgotten picture of early life. 

"Snow-Bound" was published in i860, 
and was written, Mr. Whittier has said, " to 
beguile the weariness of a sick-chamber.'- 
The poet has obeyed the canon of Lessing, 
and instead of giving us dead description 
wholly, has shown us his characters in action, 
and extended his story over three days and 
the two intervening nights, — that is to say, 
the main action covers that time: the whole 
time mentioned in the poem is a week. It 
is unnecessary to give here any further 
account of the idyl than has already been 
furnished in the account of Whittier's boy- 
hood. 

" The Tent on the Beach " is a cluster of 
ballads. In accordance with a familiar 
fiction, they are supposed to be sung, or told, 
by several persons, in this case three, namely, 
the poet himself, " a lettered magnate " (James 
T. Fields), and a traveller (Bayard Taylor). 
All of the poems are readable, and many of 
them are to be classed among Whittier's 
best lyrics. " The Wreck of Rivermouth,'* 



26o 



POEMS SERIATIM. 



^^The Changeling," and "Kallundborg 
Church " are masterpieces in the line of 
ballads. In " The Dead Ship of Harpswell " 
we have the fine phrase, — 

*' O hundred-harbored Maine ! " 

Whittier has now become almost a perfect 
master of verbal melody. Hearken to this : — 

" Oho ! " she muttered, " ye're brave to-day ! 
But I hear the httle waves laugh and say, 
' The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 
For it's one to go, but another to come ! ' " 

There is a light and piquant humor about 
some of the interludes of the "Tent on the 
Beach." The song in the last of these 
contains a striking and original stanza 
concerning the ocean: — 

" Its waves are kneelmg on the strand, 
As kneels the human knee, 
Their white locks bowing to the sand, 
The priesthood of the sea ! " 

"Among the Hills" is a little farm-idyl, 
or love-idyl, of the New Hampshire moun- 
tain land, and bearing some resemblance to 
Tennyson's " Gardener's Daughter." It is 
an excellent specimen of the poems of 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 26 1 

Whittier that reach the popular heart, and 
engage its sympathies. In the remotest 
farm-houses of the land you are almost sure 
to find among their few books a copy of 
Whittier's Poems, well-thumbed and soiled 
with use. The opening description of the 
prelude to "Among the Hills " could not be 
surpassed by Bion or Theocritus. In this 
poem a fresh interest is excited in the reader 
by the fact that the city woman falls in love 
with a manly farmer, thus happily reversing 
the old, old story of the city man wooing 
and winning the rustic beauty. The farmer 
accuses the fair city maid of coquetry. She 
replies: 

" ' Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; 
And see you not, my farmer, 
How weak and fond a woman waits 
Behind this silken armor? 

* I love you : on that love alone. 
And not my worth, presuming, 

Will you not trust for summer fruit 
The tree in May-day blooming ? ' 

Alone the hangbird overhead. 
His hair-s^^Tlng cradle straining, 

Looked down to see love's miracle, — 
The giving that is gaining." 



262 POEMS SERIATIM. 

In " Lines on a Fly-Leaf," the author of 
^^ Snow-Bouncl " gives in his hearty adherence 
to that movement for the elevation of woman, 
and the securing of her rights as a human 
being, which is perhaps the most significant 
and important of the many agitations of this 
agitated age. 

The poem " Miriam," like " The Preacher," 
is one of those long sermons, or meditations 
in verse, which Whittier loves to spin out 
of his mind in solitude. It contains in 
" Shah Akbar " a fine Oriental ballad. 

The narrative poem called "The Penn- 
sylvania Pilgrim," published in 1872, has no 
striking poetical merit, but is valuable and 
readable for the pleasant light in which it 
sets forth the doings of the quaint people 
of Germantow^n and the Wissahickon, near 
Philadelphia, nearly two hundred years ago. 
It introduces us to the homes and hearts of the 
little settlements of German Quakers under 
Francis Daniel Pastorius, the Mystics under 
the leadership of Magiste/ Johann Kelpius, 
and the Mennonites under their various 
leaders. " The Pennsylvania Pilgrim " is 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 263 

a poem for Quakers, for Philadelphians who 
love their great park and its Wissahickon 
drives, and for antiquarian historical students. 
We may regret, if we choose, that the poet 
has not succeeded in embalming the memory 
of the Germantown Quakers in such felicitous 
verse as other poets have sung the virtues 
and ways of the Puritans, but we cannot 
deny that he has garnished with the flowers 
of poetry a dry historical subject, and so 
earned the gratitude of a goodly number of 
students and scholars. 

In "The King's Missive, and Other 
Poems," published in 1881, the most notable 
piece is " The Lost Occasion," a poem on 
Daniel Webster, finer even than the much- 
admired "Ichabod," published many years 
previously. " The Lost Occasion " is pitched 
in a high, solemn, and majestic strain. It 
is a superb eulogy, full of magnanimity and 
generous forgiveness. Listen to a few 
stanzas : — 

" Thou 
Whom the rich heavens did endow 
With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, 
With all the massive strength that fills 
Thy home-horizon's granite hills, 



264 POEMS SERIATIM, 

Whose words, in simplest home-spun clad, 
The Saxon strength of Caedmon had, 

Sweet with persuasion, eloquent 

In passion, cool in argument. 

Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes 

As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, 

Too soon for us, too soon for thee. 
Beside thy lonely Northern sea, 
Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, 
Laid wearily down thy august head." 

The poem of " The King's Missive " calls 
for such extended discussion that a brief 
chapter shall be devoted to it. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 265 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE king's missive. 

" Under the great hill sloping bare 

To cove and meadow and Coinmon lot, 
In his council chamber and oaken chair, 
Sat the worshipful Governor EndicottJ^ 

So run the opening lines of the histor- 
ical poem contributed b}' Whittier to the 
first volume of the Memorial History of 
Boston (1880). While the governor is thus 
sitting, in comes Clerk Rawson with the un- 
welcome news that banished Quaker Shat- 
tuck, of Salem, has returned from abroad. 
The choleric governor swears that he will 
now hew in pieces the pestilent, ranting 
Quakers. Presently Shattuck is ushered in: 
"Off with the knave's hat," says the gov- 
ernor. As they strike off his hat he smil- 
ingly holds out the Missive, or mandamus, 
of Charles II. The governor immediately 
asks him to cover, and humbly removes his 
own hat. The king's letter commands him 



2 DO THE KINGS MISSIVE. 

to cease persecuting the Quakers. After 
consultation with the deputy governor, Bel- 
iingham, he obeys, and the then imprisoned 
Quakers file out of jail with words of praise 
on their lips. 

The poem fascinates us, for the incident 
is dramatic, and focusses in a single pictur- 
esque situation all the features of that little 
historical episode of two hundred years ago, 
i. g., the persecution of the Quakers by the 
Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
A brief setting forth of the facts connected 
with this persecution will not only be full 
of intrinsic interest, but is indispensable 
to a right understanding of the Quaker 
poet's inherited character, as well as to a 
comprehension of his prose and poetry. 
One whose ancestors have been persecuted 
for generations will inherit a loathing of 
oppression, as Whittier has done. And this 
hatred of tyranny will be intensified in the 
case of one who is thoroughly read in the 
literature of that persecution, and is in quick 
and intimate sympathy with the victims, 
as Whittier is. 

But first a word more about the " King's 
Missive." Joseph Besse, in his " Collection 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 267 

of the Sufferings of the People called Qua- 
kers " (a sort of " Fox's Book of Martyrs," 
in two huge antique volumes), says [II., 
p. 226] that the principal instrument in pro- 
curing the royal mandamus (styled by 
Whittier the King's Missive) was Edward 
Burroughs,^ who went to the king and told 
him that "There was a Vein of innocent 
Blood open'd in his Dominions, which if it 
were not stopt might over-run all. To 
which the king replied, ^But I will stop that 
Vein.'" Accordingly, in the autumn of 166 1, 
Samuel Shattuck Avas selected to bear a let- 
ter to America. The London Friends hired 
Ralph Goldsmith, also a Friend, to convey 
Shattuck to his destination. They paid him 
£300 for the service. The ship entered 
Boston Harbor on a Sunday in the latter 
part of November, 1661. 

"The Townsmen," says Besse, "seeing a 

* " There is a story," savs Dr. George E. Ellis, " that Bur- 
roughs got access to the king out of doors, while his Majesty 
was playing tennis. As Burrovighs kept on his hat while 
accosting the king, the latter gracefully removed his plumed 
cap and bowed. The Qiiaker, put to the blush, said, 'Thee 
need'st not remove thy hat.' ' Oh,' replied the king, ' it is of 
no consequence, only that when the king and another gentle- 
man are talking together it is usual for one of them to take 
off his hat.' " 



268 THE KINGS MISSIVE. _ 

Ship with English Colours, soon came on 
board, and asked for the Captain? Ralph 
Goldsmith told them, He -was the Com- 
mander. They asked, Whether he had any 
Letters f He answered, Tes. But withal 
told them. He %vould not deliver them that 
Day. So they returned on shore again, 
and reported, that There tvere many Qiiakers 
come^ and that Samuel Shattock (who they 
knew had been banished on pain of Death) 
was among them. But they knew nothing 
of his Errand or Authority. Thus all was 
kept close, and none of the Ship's Company 
suffered to go on shore that Day. Next 
morning Ralfh Goldsmith^ the Commander, 
with Samuel Shattock, the King's Dep- 
uty, went on shore, and sending the Boat 
back to the Ship, they two went directly 
through the Town to the Governour's House, 
and knockt at the Door: He sending a Man 
to know their Business, they sent him Word, 
that Their Message was from the King of 
England, and that they would deliver it to 
none but himself. Then they were ad- 
mitted to go in, and the Governour came to 
them, and commanded Samuel ShattocFs 
Hat to be taken off, and having received the 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 269 

Deputation and the Mandamus, he laid off 
his own Hat; and ordering Shattock's Hat to 
be given him again, perused the Papers, and 
then went out to the Deputy-Governour's, 
bidding the King's Deputy and the Master 
of the Ship to follow him: Being come to 
the Deputy-Governour, and having consulted 
him, he returned to the aforesaid two Per- 
sons and said, We shall obey his Majesty's 
Command, After this, the Master of the 
Ship gave Liberty to his Passengers to come 
on shore, which they did, and had a religious 
Meeting with their Friends of the Town, 
where they returned Praises to God for his 
Mercy manifested in this wonderful Deliver- 



ance." 



The persecution, it is true, only ceased 
for about a year (the next recorded whip- 
ping-order bearing date of December 22, 
1662). But the Quakers were greatly en- 
couraged by the interposition in their favor. 

In an address before the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, Dr. George E. Ellis, of 
Boston, read a paper criticising Mr. Whit- 
tier's " King's Missive." This address was 
published in the Proceedings of the Society 
for March, 1881. In the "Memorial History 



270 THE KING'S MISSIVE. 

of Boston " [I., p. 180] he asserts that the 
Quakers were all "of low rank, of mean 
breeding, and illiterate." He sa^^s that they 
courted persecution, and that they were a 
pestilent brood of ranters, disturbers of the 
public peace, and dreaded by the leaders of 
the infant Commonwealth as they would 
have dreaded the cholera. He quotes Roger 
Williams, who wrote of the Quakers that 
they were " insutferably proud and conten- 
tious," and advised a " due and moderate 
restraint of their incivilities." Dr. Ellis, it 
is true, takes the theoretical ground of " the 
equal folly and culpability of both parties in 
the tragedy," but seems entirely to nullify 
this statement by his apparently unbiassed, 
but really partisan treatment of the subject. 
When you have finished his paper you per- 
ceive that the impression left on your mind 
is that the really bitter and unrelenting Pu- 
ritan persecutors were long-suffering, angelic 
natures, while their victims, the Quakers, 
were mere gallows' dogs. His theoretical 
position is summed up in the following 
words: — 

"The crowning folly or iniquity in the 
course of the Puritans was in following up 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 27 1 

their penal inflictions, through banishments, 
imprisonments, fines, scourgings, and mutila- 
tions, to the execution on the gallows of four 
martyr victims. But what shall we say of 
the persistency, the exasperating contempt- 
uousness and defiance, the goading, madden- 
ing obstinacy, and reproaching invectives of 
those who drove the magistrates, against 
their will, to vindicate their own insulted 
authority, and to stain our annals with inno- 
cent blood ?" — Memorial History of Boston, 
I., 1882. 

Dr. Ellis is right in holding that some of 
the Quakers were gadflies of obstinacy, and 
full of self-righteous pride; but he fails to 
tell us of the patience. Christian sweetness, 
and meekness of character of the majority 
of them; and it is only when we turn to the 
pages of Fox and Besse that we see the in- 
adequate character of such a picture as that 
drawn by Dr. Ellis. In the plain, ndwe 
annals of Besse, the hard-heartedness and 
haughty pride of the Puritan magistrates 
(traits still amply represented in their de- 
scendants) are thrown into the most strik- 
ing relief They glower over their victims 
like tigers ; they are choked with their 



272 THE KING'S MISSIVE. 

passions; they spurn excuses and palliatives; 
they demand blood. 

In the Boston Daily Advertiser iox March 
29, 1 88 1, Mr. Whittier published a long 
reply to Dr. Ellis, in which he fortified the 
positions taken by him in his ballad, show- 
ing that he did not mean to hold up Charles 
II. as a consistent friend of toleration, and 
that there must have been a general jail 
delivery in consequence of the receipt of the 
mandamus. He says : — 

" The charge that the Quakers who suf- 
fered were ^ vagabonds ' and ^ ignorant, low 
fanatics,' is unfounded in fact. Mary Dyer, 
who was executed, was a woman of marked 
respectability. 'She had been the friend and 
associate of Sir Henry Vane and the minis- 
ters Wheelwright and Cotton. The papers 
left behind by the three men who were 
hanged show that they were above the com- 
mon class of their day in mental pov/er and 
genuine piety. John Rous, who, in execu- 
tion of his sentence, had his right ear cut off 
by the constable in the Boston jail, was of 
gentlemanly lineage, the son of Colonel 
Rous of the British army, and himself the 
betrothed of a high-born and cultivated 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 273 

young English lady. Nicholas Upsall was 
one of Boston's most worthy and substantial 
citizens, yet was driven in his age and in- 
firmities, from his home and property, into 
the wilderness." 

Mr. Whittier further remarks: — 

" Dr. Ellis has been a very generous, as 
well as ingenious defender of the Puritan 
clergy and government, and his labors in 
this respect have the merit of gratuitous dis- 
interestedness. Had the very worthy and 
learned gentleman been a resident in the 
Massachusetts colony in i56o, one of his 
most guarded doctrinal sermons would have 
brought down upon him the wrath of clergy 
and magistracy. His Socinianism would have 
seemed more wicked than the Mnward light' 
of the Quakers 3 and, had he been as dog- 
gedly obstinate ' as Servetus at Geneva (as 
I do him the justice to think he would have 
been), he might have hung on the same gal- 
lows with the Quakers, or the same shears 
which clipped the ears of Holder, Rous, and 
Copeland might have shorn off his own." 

Let us look a little more closely at the 
evidence on both sides. 

In the fourth chapter of the seventh book 

18 



2 74 THE KINGS MISSIVE. 

of Cotton Mather's " Magnalia " we have a 
specimen of Quaker rant. After stating that 
he is opposed to the capital punishment of 
Quakers, but advises shaving of the head, or 
blood-letting, the proud and scornful old 
doctor concludes as follows: — 

" Reader^ I can foretell what usage I shall 
find among the Quakers for this chapter of 
our church-history y for a worthy man that 
writes of them has ohserwtd, for pride and 
hypocrisie^ and hellish reviling" against 
the -painful ministers of Christy I know no 
people can match them. Yea, prepare, 
friend Mather^ to be assaulted with such 
language as Fisher the Quaker, in his pam- 
phlets, does bestow upon such men as Dr. 
Owen; thou fiery fighter and green-headed 
trumpeter y thou hedgehog and grinning 
dog^ thou bastard that tu^nbled out of the 
mouth of the Bahilonish bawd; thou ?nole; 
thou tinker; thou lizzard; thou bell of no 
metal., but the tone of a kettle; thou wheel- 
han'ow; thou whirlpool; thou whirlegig. 
O thou' firebrand; thou adder and scor- 
pion; thou louse; thou cow-dung; thou 
moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemallion ; 
thou Judas; thou livest ifi philosophy and 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 275 

logick which are of the devil. Arid then 
let Penn the Quaker add, Thou gorman- 
dizing Priest, one of the abominable tribe; 
thou bane of reason.^ and beast of the earth; 
thou best to be spared of mankind; thou 
mountebank friest. These are the very 
words, (I wrong them not!) which they 
vomit out against the best men in the Eng- 
lish nation, that have been so hardy as to 
touch their light within: but let the quills 
of these -porcupines fly as fast as they will, 
I shall not feel them! Yea, every stone that 
these Kildebrands throw at me, I will wear 
as 2, pearV 

As an offset to this quaint and amusing 
tirade, and to the charges of Dr. Ellis, one 
may read the following words of Whittier, 
and, by striking a general average between 
all the speakers, get a tolerable approxima- 
tion to the exact truth. Mr. Whittier says : — 

" Nor can it be said that the persecution 
grew out of the intrusion,' indecency,' and 
^effrontery' of the persecuted. 

" It owed its origin to the settled purpose 
of the ministers and leading men of the col- 
ony to permit no diflference of opinion on 
religious matters. They had banished the 



276 THE KINGS MISSIVE. 

Baptists, and whipped at least one of them. 
They had hunted down Gorton and his 
adherents; they had imprisoned Dr. Child, 
an Episcopalian, for petitioning the Gen- 
eral Court for toleration. They had driven 
some of their best citizens out of their 
jurisdiction, with Ann Hutchinson, and the 
gifted minister. Wheelwright. Any dissent 
on the part of their own fellow-citizens 
was punished as severely as the heresy of 
strangers. 

"The charge of Mndecency' comes with 
ill-grace from the authorities of the Massa- 
chusetts Colony. The first Quakers who 
arrived in Boston, Ann Austin and Mary 
Fisher, were arrested on board the ship 
before landing, their books taken from them 
and burned by the constable, and they them- 
selves brought before Deputy Governor Bel- 
lingham, in the absence of Endicott. This as- 
tute magistrate ordered them to be stripped 
naked and their bodies to be carefully 
examined^ to see if there was not the DeviVs 
mark on them as witches. They were then 
sent to the jail, their cell window was 
boarded up, and they were left without 
food or light, until the master of the vessel 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 277 

that brought them was ordered to take them 
to Barbadoes. When Endicott returned, he 
thought they had been treated too lenientl}^, 
and declared that he would have had them 
whipped. 

"After this, almost every town in the 
province was favored with the spectacle of 
aged and young women stripped to the mid- 
dle, tied to a cart-tail and dragged through 
the streets and scourged without mercy by 
the constable's whip. It is not strange that 
these atrocious proceedings, in two or three 
instances, unsettled the minds of the victims. 
Lydia Wardwell of Hampton, who, with 
her husband, had been reduced to almost 
total destitution by persecution, was sum- 
moned by the church of which she had been 
a member to appear before it to answer to 
the charge of non-attendance. She obeyed 
the call by appearing in the unclothed con- 
dition of the sufferers whom she had seen 
under the constable's whip. For this she 
was taken to Ipswich and stripped to the 
waist, tied to a rough post, which tore her 
bosom as she writhed under the lash, and 
severely scourged to the satisfaction of a 
crowd of lookers-on at the tavern. One^ 



2']'^ THE KING'S MISSIVE. 

and only one, other instance is adduced in 
the person of Deborah Wilson of Salem. 
She had seen her friends and neighbors 
scourged naked through the street, among 
them her brother, who was banished on pain 
of death. She, like all Puritans, had been 
educated in the belief of the plenary inspi- 
ration of Scripture, and had brooded over 
the strange ' signs ' and testimonies of the 
Hebrew prophets. It seemed to her that 
the time had arrived for some similar demon- 
stration, and that it was her duty to walk 
abroad in the disrobed condition to which 
her friends had been subjected, as a sign 
and warning to the persecutors. Whatever 
of indecency' there was in these cases was 
directly chargeable upon the atrocious per- 
secution. At the door of the magistrates 
and ministers of Massachusetts must be laid 
the insanity of the conduct of these unfortu- 
nate women. 

" But Boston, at least, had no voluntary 
Godivas. The only disrobed women in its 
streets were made so by Puritan sheriffs and 
constables, who dragged them amidst jeer- 
ing crowds at the cart-tail, stripped for the 
lash, which in one instance laid open with 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 279 

a ghastly gash the bosom of a young 
mother!"* 

We may conclude this discussion by giv- 
ing a few instances of Quaker persecutions, 
in addition to those mentioned by Mr. Whit- 
tier. In England the members of the sect 
suffered a whole Jeremiad of woes: they 
were dragged through the streets by the 
hair of the head, incarcerated in loathsome 
dungeons, beaten over the head with muskets, 
pilloried, whipped at the cart's-tail, branded, 
their tongues bored Avith red-hot irons, and 
their property confiscated to the State. One 
First Day, George Fox went into the "steeple- 
house " of Tickhill. "I found," he says in 
his Journal, "the priest and most of the 
chief of the parish together in the chancel. 
I went up to them and began to speak; but 
they immediately fell upon me; the clerk up 
with his Bible, as I was speaking, and struck 
me in the face with it, so that my face 

* Mr. Whittier stated to a member of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society that it was his intention "at some time to 
prepare a full and exhaustive history of the relations of Puri- 
tan and Qiiaker in the seventeenth century." It may be added 
that the newspaper articles quoted above, with the several 
replications of their authors, may all be found in the Proceed- 
ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 1880-81 (see 
the index of that volume). 



28o THE KING'S MISSIVE. 

gushed out with blood, and I bled exceed- 
ingly in the steeple-house. The people 
cried, ^Let us have him out of the church.' 
When they had got me out, they beat me 
exceedingly, threw me down, and threw me 
over a hedge. They afterwards dragged 
me through a house into the street, stoning 
and beating me as they dragged me along; 
so that I was all over besmeared with blood 
and dirt. They got my hat from me, which 
I never had again." Fox was at various 
times thrust into dungeons filled ankle-deep 
with ordure, and was shot at, beaten with 
stones and clubs, etc. 

One evening he passed through Cam- 
bridge: "When I came into the town, the 
scholars, hearing of me, were up and ex- 
ceeding rude. I kept on my horse's back, 
and rode through them in the Lord's power; 
but they unhorsed Amor Stoddart before he 
could get to the inn. When we were in the 
inn, they were so rude in the courts and in 
the streets, that the miners, colliers, and 
carters could never be ruder. The people 
of the house asked us what we would have 
for supper. ^Supper!' said I, ^ were it not 
that the Lord's power is over them, these 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 28 1 

rude scholars look as if they would pluck us 
in pieces and make a suppc r of us.' They 
knew I was so against the trade of preach- 
ing, which they were ihere as apprentices to 
learn, that they raged as bad as ever Diana's 
craftsmen. did against Paul." 

In the declaration made by the Quakers to 
Charles II. it appears that in New England, 
up to that time, "thirty Quakers had been 
whipped; twenty-two had been banished on 
pain of death if they returned; twenty-five 
had been banished upon the penalty of being 
whipped, or having their ears cut, or being 
branded in the hand if they returned; three 
had their right ears shorn off by the hang- 
man; one had been branded in the hand 
with the letter H ; many had been impris- 
oned; many fined; and three had been put 
to death, and one (William Leddra) was 
soon after executed." 

Besse, in his " Sufferings of the Qiiakers," 
states that one William Brand, a man in 
years, was so brutally whipped by an in- 
furiated jailer, in Salem, that " His Back and 
Arms were bruised and black, and the Blood 
hanging as it were in Bags under his. Arms, 
and so into one was his Flesh beaten that the 



282 THE KINGS MISSIVE. 

Sign of a particular Blow could not be seen." 
And the surgeon said that " His Flesh would 
rot from off his Bones e'er the bruized Parts 
would be brought to digest." To all this must 
be added the humiliating fact that four persons 
were hanged on Boston Common for the 
crime of being Quakers. Their names were 
Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson^ 
William Leddra, and Mary Dyer. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 283 



CHAPTER V. 

POEMS BY GROUPS. 

Besides " The King's Missive," Whittier 
has written numerous other Quaker poems, 
the finest of which are "Cassandra South- 
wick," "The Old South," and the spirited, 
rinmng ballad of " The Exiles." In the first 
two of these the poet shows a delicate intui- 
tion into the feelings that might have 
prompted the Quaker women who witnessed 
for the truth in Boston two hundred years 
ago. 

There is nothing in American literature, 
unless it be the anti-slavery papers of 
Thoreau, which equals the sevenfold-heated 
moral indignation of Whittier's poems on 
slavery, — a wild melody in them like that 
of Highland pibrochs; now plaintively and 
piteously pleading, and nowburningwith pas- 
sion, irony, satire, scorn; here glowing with 



284 POEMS BY GROUPS, 

tropical imagery, as in " Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture," and " The Slaves of Martinique," and 
there rising into lofty moral atmospheres of 
faith when all seemed dark and hopeless. 
Every one knows the power of a " cry " (a 
song like "John Brown's Body," or a pithy 
sentence or phrase) in any great popular 
movement. There can be no doubt that 
Whittier's poems did as much as Garrison's 
editorials to key up the minds of people to 
the point required for action against slavery. 
Some of these anti-slavery pieces still pos- 
sess great intrinsic beauty and excellence, 
as, for example, "Toussaint L'Ouverture," 
" The Farewell," " The Slave Ships," and 
" The Slaves of Martinique." In these four 
productions there is little or none of the 
dreary didacticism of most of the anti-slavery 
poems, but a simple statement of pathetic, 
beautiful fact, which is left to make its own 
impression. Another powerful group of 
these slavery poems is constituted by the 
scornful, mock-congratulatory productions, 
such as " The Hunters of Men," " Clerical 
Oppressors," " The Yankee Girl," " A Sab- 
bath Scene," " Lines suggested by Reading 
a State Paper wherein the Higher Law is 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 285 

Invoked to Sustain the Lower One," and 
" The Pastoral Letter." ^ The sentences in 
these stanzas cut Hke knives and sting like 
shot. The poltroon clergy, especially, looks 
pitiful, most pitiful, in the light of Whittier's 
noble scorn and contempt. 

" Randolph of Roanoke " is a noble tribute 
to a political enemy by one who admired in 
him the man. The long poem, "The Pano- 
rama," must be considered a failure, poetically 
speaking. Its showman's pictures and 
preachings do not get hold of our sympathies 
very strongly. 

The Tyrtaean fire In Whittier was so 
thoroughly kindled by the anti-slavery con- 
flict that it has never wholl}^ gone out. All 
through his life his hand has instinctively 
sought the old war-lyre whenever a voice was 
to be raised in honor of Freedom. The formal 
close of the anti-slavery period with him 
may be said to be marked by " Laus Deo," 
a triumphant, almost ecstatic shout of joy 
uttered on hearing the bells ring when the 
Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery 
was passed. 

* "The Pastoral Letter " was an idiotic manifesto of the 
clergy of Massachusetts aimed at the Grimke sisters. 



286 



POEMS BY GROUPS. 



Naturally, the war poems of a Quaker — 
and even of our martial Whittier — -could 
not be equal to his peace poems. Still there 
are many strong passages in the lyrics writ- 
ten by Whittier during the civil war of 1861- 
65. At first he counsels that we allow dis- 
union rather than kindle the lurid fires of 
fratricidal war: — 

"Let us press 
The golden cluster on our brave old flag 
In closer union, and, if numbering less, 
Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain." 

A Word for the Hour. 

So he wrote in January, 1861. But 
afterward he becomes a pained but sadly 
approving spectator of the inevitable con- 
flict:— 

" Then Freedom sternly said : ' I shun 
No strife nor pang beneath the sun, 
When human rights are staked and won. 

The moor of Marston felt my tread, 
Through Jersey snows the march I led, 
My voice Magenta's charges sped.' " 

The Watchers. 

As a Friend, he and his brethren could 
not personally engage in war. But they 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 287 

could minister to the sick and dying, and 
care for the slave. 

"THE SLAVE IS OURS!" 

he says, — 

" And we may tread the sick-bed floors 
Where strong men pine, 
And, down the groaning corridors, 
Pour freely from our Hberal stores 
The oil and wine." 

Anniversary Poem. 

"Barbara Frietchie" is, of course, the 
best of these war lyrics. The "Song of the 
Negro Boatmen " was set to music and sung 
from Maine to California during the war 
days : — 

" De yam will grow, de cotton blow, 
We'll hab de rice an' corn ; 
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear 
De driver blow his horn ! " 

After "Voices of Freedom," in the com- 
plete edition of Whittier's poems, come 
a cluster of Biblical, or Old Testament 
poems, -^^ Palestine,'' " Ezekie 1," "The 
Wife of Manoah to her Husband," "The 
Cities of the Plain/' "The Crucifixion," 
and "The Star of Bethlehem." The best 
of these, perhaps, are " Cities of the Plain," 



288 POEMS BY GROUPS. 

and "Crucifixion," — the former intense and 
thrilling in style, and suggesting the " Sen- 
nacherib " and "Waterloo" of Byron; the 
latter a high, solemn chant, and well calcu- 
lated to touch the religious heart. Whittier 
has drawn great refreshment and inspiration 
from the thrice-winnowed wheat and the liv- 
ing-water wells of Old Testament literature. 

Allusion has already been made to the 
hymns of our poet. Hymn-book makers 
have had in his poems a very quarry to 
work. The hymn tinkers, too, have not 
spared Whittier even while he was alive, 
and many of his sacred lyrics have been 
" adapted " after the manner of hymn-book 
makers. Dr. Martineau's " Hymns of 
Praise" (1874) contains seven of Whittier's 
religious songs; the "Unitarian Hymn and 
Tune Book" (1868) also has seven; the 
Plymouth Collection (1855) has eleven, and 
Longfellow and Johnson's " Hymns of the 
Spirit" (1864) has twenty-two. 

The Essex minstrel has written quite a 
number of children's poems, such as " The 
Robin," "Red Riding Hood," and "King 
Solomon and the Ants." He has also com- 
piled two books of selections for children, 
as has already been mentioned. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 289 

Like many authors, Whittier has been at- 
tracted, in the autumn of his life, to the rich 
fields of Oriental literature. His Oriental 
poems show careful and sympathetic study 
of eastern books. " The Two Rabbis " and 
" Shah Akbar " are especially fine. The 
little touch in the former of " the small 
weeds that the bees bow with their weio^ht" 
is a very pretty one. In " The King's Mis- 
sive " we have a few " Oriental Maxims," 
being paraphrases of translations from the 
Sanscrit. "The Dead Feast of the Kol- 
Folk," and "The Khan's Devil," are also 
included in the same volume. 

Mr. Whittier has also made successful 
studies in Norse literature, for which his 
beautiful ballads, the " Dole of Jarl Thor- 
kell," " Kallundborg Church," and " King 
Volmer and Elsie " are vouchers. 

19 



290 



PROSE WRITINGS, 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROSE WRITINGS. 

It is to be feared that the greater portion 
of the prose writings of Whittier will be 
caviare to many readers of this day. He 
himself almost admits as much in the pref- 
atory note to the second volume of the com- 
plete edition of his essays. That many of 
the papers are entertaining reading, and that 
they are written often in a light and genial 
and vivacious style, is true; and, as he him- 
self hints, the}' will at least be welcomed 
and indulgently judged by his personal 
friends and admirers. His prose work was 
done in a time seething with moral ideas; 
the air was full of reforms; the voice of 
duty sounded loud in men's consciences, 
and the ancestral buckler called — 

" Self-clanging, from the walls 
In the high temple of the soul ! " 

Lowell. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WILITTIER. 29 1 

That particular era is now passed. The 
great secular heart is now in its diastole, or 
relaxation. Hence it is that the philan- 
thropic themes discussed by Mr. Whittier 
thirty years ago (and most of his essays are 
of a philanthropic character) possess but a 
languid interest for the present reading pub- 
lic. The artistic essays, however, are 
charming, and possess permanent interest. 
Let us except from these the long pro- 
ductions, "Margaret Smith's Journal" and 
'^My Summer with Dr. Singletary." Some 
have thought these to be the best papers 
in the collection. But to many they must 
appear frigid and old-fashioned in the ex- 
treme. They seem aimless and sprawling, 
mere esqiiisses^ tentative work in a field 
in which the author was doubtful of his 
powers. They would ordinarily be classed 
under the head of Sunday-school literature. 
It has been suggested that the idea of "Mar- 
garet Smith's Journal " might have been 
derived from the "Diary of Lady Wil- 
loughby," which appeared about the same 
time. "The Journal'- is a reproduction of 
the antique in style and atmosphere, and is 
said to be very successful as far as that 



292 PROSE WRITINGS. 

goes. But certainly the iteration of the 
archaism, " did do," " did write," etc., gets 
to be very wearisome. The "Journal " pur- 
ports to be written by a niece of Edward 
Rawson, Secretary of Massachusetts from 
1650-1686. The scene is laid in Newbury, 
where Rawson settled about 1636. We 
have pleasant pictures of the colonial life of 
the day, of the Quakers and Indians and 
Puritans, and, on the whole, the sketch is 
well worth reading by historical students. 

'^Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" 
consists chiefly of newspaper articles on 
modern reformers. They were originally 
contributed to the National Era. The 
portraits drawn are those of John Bunjan, 
Thomas Ellwood, James Nayler, Andrew 
Marvell, John Roberts, Samuel Hopkins, 
Richard Baxter, — and,*among Americans, 
William Leggett and Nathaniel Peabody 
Rogers, — both anti-slavery reformers and 
journalists; and, lastly, Robert Dinsmore, 
the rustic Scotch-American poet of Haver- 
hill. The last three papers mentioned are 
the best. 

The second volume of Mr. Whittier's 
prose writings bears the title " Literary 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 293 

Recreations and Miscellanies," and consists 
of various reviews, thumb-nail essays, and 
indigenous folk-and-nature studies, made in 
the region of the Merrimack. These last 
are of most interest, and indicate the field 
w^hich Mr. Whittier w^ould have cultivated 
w^ith most success. In the review^s of the 
volume the newspapery tone and journalist 
diction are rather unpleasantly conspicuous. 
As a critic, our poet is not very successful, 
because he is too earnest a partisan, too 
merciless and undistinguishing in his invcQ- 
tive or too generous in his praise. For 
example, w^hat he says about Carlyle, in 
reviewing that author's infamous "Discourse 
on the Negro Question," is true as far as it 
goes. But of the elementary literary canon, 
that the prime function of the critic is to put 
himself in the place of the one he is criti- 
cising, — of this law Mr. Whittier has not, 
practically, the faintest notion. He con- 
siders everything from the point of view of 
the Quaker or of the reformer. 

Numerous specimens of Mr. Whittier's 
prose have already been given in various parts 
of this volume, but for the sake of illustration 
we may add two more. For an example of 



294 PROSE WRITINGS. 

his serious style take the following from 
"Scottish Reformers": "He who under- 
takes to tread the pathway of reform — who, 
smitten with the love of truth and justice, 
or, indignant in view of wrong and insolent 
oppression, is rashly inclined to throw him- 
self at once into that great conflict which the 
Persian seer not untruly represented as a 
war between light and darkness — '- would do 
well to count the cost in the outset. If he 
can live for Truth alone, and, cut off from 
the general sympathy, regard her service as 
its own '^ exceeding great reward '; if he can 
bear to be counted a fanatic and crazy 
visionary; if, in all good nature, he is ready 
to receive from the very objects of his solici- 
tude abuse and obloquy in return for dis- 
interested and self-sacrificing efforts for their 
welfare; if, with his purest motives mis- 
understood and his best actions perverted 
and distorted into crimes, he can still hold 
on his way and patiently abide the hour 
when ^the whirligig of Time shall bring 
about its revenges'; if, on the whole, he is 
prepared to be looked upon as a sort of 
moral outlaw or social heretic under good 
society's interdict of food and fire; and if he 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 295 

is well assured that he can, through all this, 
preserve his cheerfulness and faith m man 
L let him gird up his loins and go forward 
in God's name. He is fitted for his voca- 
tion; he has watched all night by his armor. 
Great is the consciousness oi right. 
Sweet is the answer of a good conscience. 
He who pays his whole-hearted homage to 
truth and duty, -who swears his hfe-long 
fealty on their altars, and rises up a Nazarite 
consecrated to their service,- is not withou 
his solace and enjoyment when, to the eyes 
of others, he seems the most lonely and 
n^iserable. He breathes an atmosphere 
which the multitude know not ot, a serene 
heaven which they cannot discern rests^over 
him, glorious in its purity and stiUness.^ 
For a specimen of our author's vein of 
, pleasantry take the following bit of satire 
on "The Training": "What's now in the 
wind? Sounds of distant music float in at 
my window on this still October air. Hurry- 
in^ drum-beat, shrill fife-tones, wailmgbugle- 
no^tes, and, by way of --"P— "^ 
hurrahs from the urchins on the crowd 1 
sidewalks. Here come the citizen-soldiers 
each martial foot beating up the mud of 



2gb PROSE WRITINGS, 

yesterday^s storm with the slow, regular, 
up-and-down movement of an old-fashioned 
churn-dasher. Keeping time with the feet 
below, some threescore of plumed heads 
bob solemnly beneath me. Slant sunshine 
glitters on polished gun-barrels and tinselled 
uniform. Gravely and soberly they pass on, 
as if dul}^ impressed with a sense of the deep 
responsibility of their position as self-con- 
stituted defenders of the world's last hope, — 
the United States of America, and possibly 
Texas. They look out with honest, citizen 
faces under their leathern vizors (their feroc- 
ity being mostly the work of the tailor and 
tinker), and, I doubt not, are at this moment 
as mnocent of bloodthirstiness as yonder 
worthy tiller of the Tewksbury Hills, who 
sits quietly in his wagon dispensing apples 
and turnips without so much as giving a 
glance at the procession. Probably there is 
not one of them who would hesitate to divide 
his last tobacco-quid with his worst enemy. 
Social, kind-hearted, psalm-singing, sermon- 
hearing. Sabbath-keeping Christians;' and 
yet, if we look a : the fact of the matter, these 
very men have been out the whole afternoon 
of ibis beautiful day, under God's holy sun- 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 297 

shine, as busily at work as Satan himself 
could wish in learning how to butcher their 
fellow-creatures, and acquire the true scien- 
tific method of impaling a forlorn Mexican 
on a bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile 
in the brain of some unfortunate Briton, 
urged within its range by the double in- 
centive of sixpence per day in his pocket 
and the cat-o'-nine tails on his back!" 



Part III. 

TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 30: 



CHAPTER I. 

TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 

The passing away from earth of John 
Greenleaf Whittier occurred on September 
7, 1892, at four-thirty a. m., at Hampton 
Falls, N. H., in the very heart of the region he 
has immortalized by his ballads. The hour 
was just as the reddening east was mingling 
its light with that of the full harvest moon. 
Around his bedside were numerous relatives 
and friends. He fell asleep in an uncon- 
scious state, after an illness of a week. Let 
us now go back and, taking up the thread 
of the narrative where it was dropped on 
page 152, run over the incidents that have 
intervened in the decade since 1882 in the 
life of this pleasant singer — this plain 
Quaker farmer, who drew such soul-thril- 
ling strains from his home-made rustic flute 
as to concentrate upon himself the attention 
of the whole world. 



302 JOHN GREEN-LEAF WIIITTIER. 

In 1883 (January 7) died, in Boston, 
Whittier's brother, Matthew Franklin Whit- 
tier, whose daughter Elizabeth, before her 
marriage to Samuel T. Pickard, was house- 
keeper for a number of years for her uncle, 
the poet, at Amesbury. " Frank," as his 
associates called him, obtained, it is said, his 
position in the Boston Custom House through 
the influence of his brother. Says a friend 
(Mr. Charles O. Stickney) : — 

" Frank was not a poet, and being of a 
practical turn of mind, had the good sense 
not to attempt the impossible ; but he was a 
man of intellect, an omnivorous reader, was 
well posted, and, though inclined to seclu- 
sion and taciturnity, was nevertheless genial 
and companionable ; his conversation spiced 
with his quiet, quaint humor, which bubbled 
up in some happy inot, neat fun, or well- 
turned bit of satire which raised a laugh, 
but left no sting behind." His quaint, 
humorous dialect articles, over the signature 
" Ethan Spike," are said to have given 
Nasby and Artemus Ward their cue. They 
were chiefly contributed to the Portland 
Transcript, the Boston Carpet Bag, and 
New York Vanity Fair. They all pur- 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 303 

ported to emanate from "Hornby," a "smart 
town " in Maine — "a veritable down-east 
wonderland, whose wide-awake citizens were 
up to the times and ready to settle any great 
question of the day at ' a special town 
meetin'.' " Mr. Spike was as intense in his 
anti-slavery views as his brother Greenleaf. 
Specimens of his work may be found in the 
Portland Transcript, January lo, 1846, the 
Carpet Bag, October 14, 1850, and Novem- 
ber, 185 1. 

In 1884 Whittier's seventy-seventh birth- 
day was observed at Oak Knoll, when the 
genial old bachelor received with courtesy 
and hospitality all who called. Gifts of 
flowers poured in to serve as foil to the two 
huge birthday cakes from relatives. 

An editorial writer in one of Boston's 
chief dailies thus describes a visit to Mr. 
Whittier, made in 1884: — 

" Mr. Whittier met us at the door of the 
pleasant house at Oak Knoll. He came 
out on the piazza, and shook us each by the 
hand, and said, ' I am glad to see thee.' He 
concerned himself about our rubbers and 
waterproofs in the hall-way, and said that 
we were kind to come. I had taken a great 



304 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

fit of shyness on seeing him, and was sur- 
prised to hear my friend speaking to him in 
the same quiet tone that she had used when 
alone with me. I listened, and reveled in 
silence as the old poet and the young artist 
spoke together. He led us into the parlor, 
and they talked of a landscape on the wall, 
of pictures, and of a portrait. 

" Presently he said: ' It is a little cold here. 
Shall we go into my room .? ' He led the 
way to the bright library where most of his 
days are now spent. Mr. Whittier happened 
to orlance from the window as we stood for a 
moment speaking with him : he saw our cab 
waiting for us on the drive. The rain had 
beo-'un aorain. Then a wonderful thingj befell. 

" He forbade us to go away within the 
quarter hour; he forbade us to go for three 
hours. He went out and sent the cabman 
avv^ay, then he took us into the library. We 
sat down in front of the cheery open fire, 
and Mr. Whittier talked with us. He spoke 
of the claims of young people on life, it was 
different from any talk I had heard ; in the 
face of my poets, I used to think that all 
good people believed that life is our cred- 
itor and hard taskmaster." 



TWILIGHr AND EVENING BELL. 



305 



On October 24, 1884, a portrait of Whit- 
tier was presented by Charles F. Coffin, of 
Lynn, Mass., a devoted friend and admirer 
of his, to the Friends' School of Providence, 
R. I. It was painted by Edgar Parker, of 
Boston, and represents Whittier sitting in an 
arm-chair in an attitude of peaceful thought. 

It is hung in Alumni Hall, between busts 
of Elizabeth Fry and John Bright, and is 
considered to be a worthy memorial of the 
poet. Letters on this occasion were read 
from James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, 
E. P. Whipple, John Bright, George William 
Curtis, Boyle O'Reilly, Matthew Arnold, 
and others. From Mr. Whipple's letter the 
following is an extract : — 

" I have had the privilege of knowing him* 
intimately for many years, and of doing all I 
could through the press to point out his ex- 
ceptional and original merits as a writer. 
My admiration of his genius and character 
has increased with every new volume he has 
published and every new manifestation of 
that essential gentleness which lies at the 
root of his nature, even when, some of his 
poems suggest the warrior rather than the 
Quaker. One thing is certain : that the 

20 



306 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

reader feels that the writer possesses that 
peculiar attribute of humanity which we in- 
stinctively call by the high name of soul ; 
and, whether he storms into the souls of 
others or glides into them, his hot invectives 
equally with his soft persuasions mark him 
as a man ; a man, too, of might ; a man whose 
force is blended with his insight, and who 
can win or woo his way into hostile or recipi- 
ent minds by innate strength or delicacy of 
nature." 

In 1885 the poet's birthday was again 
quietly celebrated at Oak Knoll, and in the 
afternoon Mr. Whittier's portrait was un- 
veiled before a large audience in the Town 
Hall of Haverhill. 

In September, 1885, occurred a most in- 
teresting festival — the reunion of the grad- 
uates of the old Haverhill Academy, for 
whom the poet cherished to the end of his 
life an earnest and outspoken affection. It 
was here that Whittier got all the scholastic 
education he ever had outside of the district 
school ; the reunion was thoroughly enjoyed 
therefore by him, although it was in his 
honor. For his health was pretty good, and 
he was in fine spirits. An interesting letter 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 307 

was received from the aged Miss Arethusa 
Hall, a preceptress in the Academy when 
Whittier attended it. Among others, Dr. 
Holmes wrote: "The class of 1829 [Har- 
vard] has a bright record; but how much 
brio'hter it would have been if we could have 
read upon the triennial and quinquennial 
catalogues: Johannes Greenleaf Whittier, 
A. B., A. M., LL. D., etc ! But what, after 
all, can all the degrees of all the colleges do 
for him whose soul has been kindled by that 
'ae spark of Nature's fire,' which Burns 
caught from her torch on the banks of Ayr, 
and Whittier among the mists that rise from 
the Merrimack ? " - 

Mr. Whittier presented photographs of 
himself with his autograph to his school- 
mates, promised to think over the sitting for 
an oil portrait, and entered with zest into any 
bit of mirthfulness that sparkled out during 
the evening, although, as will be seen from 
the following description of a representative 
of the Boston Advertiser, he could scarcely 
understand the situation : — 

" In the company was one man who seemed 
neither to accept nor to comprehend the situ- 
ation. That man was John G. Whittier. 



308 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

His face and demeanor that day would have 
afforded study for a psychologist. That it 
was fifty-seven years since he entered Haver- 
hill Academy he remembered with a cer- 
tain sweet melancholy. That everybody was 
vying with everybody else in making love to 
him he could not help observing. But what 
it was all about, and why people should per- 
sist in talking of him when he wanted other, 
more congenial topics to be uppermost — 
these questions evidently puzzled him. A 
countenance on which was a look of shyness, 
of surprise, of perplexity ; withal, a counte- 
nance irradiated by reciprocal affection and 
pleasure in seeing others pleased — if any 
one of the present artists could have caught 
and delineated those features, the painter 
would have been destined to share the im- 
mortality of the poet. On. such a subject 
the temptation to indulge in reminiscence is 
strong. But space will permit me to men- 
tion only two or three characteristic inci- 
dents. A gifted vocalist had just sung a 
composition prepared for that day ; and Mr. 
Whittier, turning to her, said, ' Friend, I 
wish that I could write a song for thee to 
sine.' An elocutionist of note read aloud 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 309 

one of the author's poems. He listened 
eagerly, as if it was wholly new to him ; and 
a little mist gathered in those deep, dreamy 
eyes at the lines beginning, 

' I mourn no more my vanished years,' 

but there was an answering gleam at the 
words, 

' The windows of my soul I throw 
Wide open to the sun.' 

" Two circumstances made that one of the 
few red-letter days in the memory of the 
present writer. I had known in Kansas a 
lady who belonged to that band of Haverhill 
Academy pupils whose boast and joy it was 
to have studied and played with the Quaker 
poet. On mentioning this lady's name, I 
found myself instantly accepted as her proxy. 
For some minutes Mr. Whittier seemed to 
have no other interest than to learn all pos- 
sible particulars of her and send to her all 
possible expressions of regard. 

"The other circumstance was the result of 
my connection with the Advertiser, Taking 
me into one corner of the room, he asked 



3IO JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 

me to sit beside him on the sofa. Then, 
drawing from his pocket the manuscript of 
the poem which he had written for that 
occasion and on portions of which the ink 
was not yet dry, the author, in a manner 
irresistibly winning, seemed to take his 
humble brother of the pen-craft into confi- 
dence, explaining the motive for various lines 
and passing on to speak of those boyhood 
days which the poem and the occasion 
recalled." 

December 17 again came round in 1886, 
and found Whittier receiving friends, pres- 
ents, and congratulatory telegrams at Oak 
Knoll. Wendell Phillips, for example, sent 
him a handsome cane, and some one else 
sent a great frosted cake and a basket that 
strained its sides to hold the gift of fruit 
it contained. 

In December, 1887, it occurred to a young 
lady journalist on the staff of the Boston 
Advertiser (Miss Minna C. Smith) that it 
w^ould be a Q-ood idea to have a " Whittier 
number " of that journal. The thought was 
a fertile one and was put into execution in 
great haste, but with eminent success. 
Poems were contributed by Walt Whitman, 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. , 3II 

Dr. Holmes, James Jeffrey Roche, Hezekiah 
Butterworth, Herbert D. Ward, Minot J 
Savage, Margaret Sidney (Mrs. D. Lothrop) 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others, and 
there was a great array of letters from other 
writers and eminent persons. Edward 
Everett Hale told the story of Whittier s 
Kansas " Emigrants' Song," how it was sung 
,,, route and in the West by brave pioneers 
of New England. James Parton, of New- 
buryport, Whittier's Amesbury neighbor, 
wrote that Whittier was carrying his burthen 
of eighty years "with considerable ease and 
constant cheerfulness." He continued :- 

" I am sometimes asked, ' Is the poet 
Whittier really a Quaker or only one by 
inheritance?' He is really a Quaker He 
wears, it is true, a silk hat of the kind famil- 
iarly called the stove-pipe, which gleams ui 
the brilliant sun of winter, and seems to in- 
dicate at once the man of Boston and the 
man of the world. But it is not the broad- 
brimmed hat that makes the Quaker. 1 he 
poet does actually keep a Quaker coat for 
Sundays and other dress occasions which 
coat was made by a firm of Orthodox Friends 
in Philadelphia, the metropolitan city of the 



312 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

gentle sect. He also uses the thee and thou 
in conversation, although without attaching 
the least importance to these trifles. But 
he is also a Friend from heartfelt conviction. 
A few miles from his home is one of the 
smallest meeting-houses in New England, 
standino^ alone in a land of farms and fields. 
It is painted white, and looks a little like 
a small schoolhouse. This edifice will seat 
perhaps forty persons, but the usual congre- 
gation numbers about fourteen, who on winter 
Sundays dwindle often to seven and some- 
times to three. This is the meeting-house 
which the poet Whittier attends whenever he 
is at home, unless prevented by the weather. 

"What an extraordinary thing is this! 
The poet who has most deeply felt and most 
beautifully expressed the sentiment and soul 
of New England is a member of the sect to 
which New England was so intolerant and 
so cruel ! When the essential New England 
has ceased to exist, it will live again, and 
live long, in Whittier's poems ; and he a 
Quaker ! Was there ever before a revenge 
so complete and so sublime ? " 

Mr. Charles M. Thompson sent for this 
octogenarian birthday a fine poetical stanza: — 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 313 

" A thousand stars swim on through time. 
Unknown and unregarded in the skies. 

But one, kings followed ; one, thy rhyme. 
Led on a land of kings in liberty's emprise ! " 

Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in 
connection with a circle of intellectual and 
social people that centred around the family 
of Judge Pitman in the years just preceding 
the rise of the abolition movement. " The 
Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. 
Carleton, " and I (I hardly know why) was 
admitted to the meetings of the people who 
gathered there. They were the leaders in 
everything that was progressive. They have 
since become widely scattered. 

" I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of 
these leaders. These people formed to a 
large extent his social world at that time. 
It was the one place at which Mr. Whittier 
threw off his natural reserve and took his 
proper place. He was a good conversation- 
alist on occasion, and when he spoke he 
was worth listenino; to. I remember him as 
intensely interested in whatever subject occu- 
pied the attention of the circle. He was never 
the first to begin a discussion, but rather 
bided his time for an especial opportunity." 



314 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's 
friendliness, his cordiality, and his unassum- 
ing manner: " In the few delightful days I 
spent in his company in the White Mountain 
region, I saw no signs of formality or reserve. 
He told me, under the trees, many stories of 
his life and of his earliest successes. He 
impresses you strongly as a true and gener- 
ous friend to everything and every man he 
believes good and honest. He does not like 
to be lionized, and refused to be introduced 
to a man whose only claim to his friendship 
was that he had read all his works. When, 
however, Mr. Whittier learned that this 
same man was an ardent admirer of the 
poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck 
that made them firm friends during this 
stranger's stay." 

At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear 
and sunshiny, if cold, and warm hearts 
within lauo'hed the season to scorn. The 
ladies of Boston, at the suggestion of Mrs. 
D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and ex- 
quisite gift ; eighty beautiful roses edged a 
large basket fringed with fern-sprays, that 
held an open book of white roses, across 
whose face lay a pen of violets, and on the 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



315 



wide satin book-mark was Inscribed the clos- 
ing stanza of " My Triumph." The Essex 
Club of Boston presented a large album ; 
fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday 
cake in the dining-room. Mr. Charles F. 
Coflin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing- 
basket of fruit, arranged under his personal 
supervision, " every fruit in its season," 
of exquisite colors and shapes, to express 
his affection for his life-long friend, the 
poet 

The new town of Whittier, in California, 
sent an advance copy of the first issue of 
the town's newspaper ; the Governor of 
the Commonwealth, as the winter afternoon 
quickly declined, cut and distributed to the 
guests slices of the birthday cake, while all 
through the day Whittier passed to and fro 
from room to room, conversing with young 
and old, and hospitable to all. 

Whittier himself is reported as saying on 
his eightieth birthday : " When a man is 
eighty years old, it is time to give up active 
mental work. Oh ! I am able to eo about 
these grounds pretty well. I have never 
attempted to imitate Gladstone and chop 
down trees, but I like to split wood." 



3l6 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.' 

This was James Russell Lowell's verse 
for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday : — 

" How fair a pearl chain, eighty strong, 

Lustrous and hallowed every one 
With saintly thoughts and sacred song, 

As 'twere the rosary of a nun ! " 

The exciternent and nervous exhaustion 
attendant upon these birthday occasions, it 
always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks 
fully to recover from. Hence in 1889 (and 
partly on account of the recent death of a be- 
loved cousin), the poet announced, through 
the press, that he should have to ask his 
friends to spare him any public reception. 
However, December 17 was observed as 
"Whittier Day" very generally throughout 
the country, as it had been in 1887, in 
accordance with the custom that has grown 
up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent 
men in the schools, and introducing into 
their courses of supplementary reading se- 
lected portions of the writings of each. 
Among the gifts received at Oak Knoll was 
a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman 
Marcus, of New York City, to whom the 
poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



%^1 



hand an elegant portfolio of red 
containing a picture of a vase of Grecian 
design, richly ornamented, and inscribed 
with the legend, " May in the smallest part 
thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be 
filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio 
and the picture on its page are a close reali- 
zation of what the donor saw in his drearn. 

Speaking of visitors. Col. Higginson tells 
two incidents in point. He says two nice 
little boys called one day on Whittier, saying 
that they had recently called on Longfellow, 
and, as he had died soon after, they thought 
it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One 
of the poet's housekeepers once asked him 
in severe tones whether all " these people " 
came on business or whether they were 
relatives. When told that neither was the 
case, she said she did not see what they 
came for then. " Neither did I," said 
Whittier, with laughing eye. 

In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who 
had gone down to Amesbury to vote, had 
been taken ill there, and hardly expected to 
be able to get back to Oak Knoll by the 
seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a 
sunny day. Many of his friends spared him 



3X8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

visits, merely leaving their cards or sending 
remembrances. His mail was very large, as 
usual on this day. 

In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's 
health was so feeble that he was obliged to 
abandon his daily walks, except about the 
grounds at Oak Knoll. Driving was too 
fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown 
so bad that he could converse only with 
difficulty. 

In Whittier's poem," The Red River Voy- 
ageur," there is a beautiful allusion to the 
" bells of the Roman mission," now the 
Archepiscopate of St. Boniface. Archbishop 
Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz 
that December 17, 189 1, was the eighty-fourth 
birthday of the poet, the suggestion being- 
made that the anniversary should be greeted 
by a joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral 
of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His 
Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful 
tribute was rendered at midnight with the last 
stroke of the clock ushering the natal day. 
Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the 
incident by United States Consul Taylor, 
wrote to the Archbishop : " I have reached an 
age when literary success and manifestations 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



319 



of popular favor have ceased to satisfy one 
upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is 
resting ; but such a delicate and beautiful trib- 
ute has deeply moved me. I shall never for- 
get it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface 
sounding across the continent, and awakening 
a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act." 
Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), 
and alas ! his last on earth, was delightfully 
observed at the home of the Cartlands, his 
cousins, in Newburyport, with whom he was 
spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland 
is himself a Quaker, and his white hair 
and genial cheery temperament are quite of 
the old reoime. He and his wife were teach- 
ers in the Friends' School at Providence, 
R. I. Their fine old mansion on High 
Street is the identical one built and lived in 
by Judge Li verm ore, father of the shrewish 
saint and devotee of " Snow-Bound." It 
may be stated, too, that it was to succeed 
one of the Cartlands in the editorial chair 
of the Pennsylvania Freeman that Whittier 
went to Philadelphia in 1838. In this house 
is kept the old maple-wood desk, made by 
Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, 
who, by the way, " wrote on it his first poem." 



320 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The desk is about one hundred and eighty 
years old now. On the back are carved the 
initials "J. W., 1786," in large letters. The 
wood has been smoothed down a little and a 
coat of shellac applied. On the back of the 
drawers are memoranda in chalk and pencil 
made by Greenleafs father. On December 
17, 1 89 1, the old piece of furniture was cov- 
ered with hundreds of congratulatory letters 
which would have made the old farmer 
Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in astonish- 
ment, could he have seen them. 

" As he walks slowly down the broad 
stairs of the Cartland's at Newburyport," 
says one who saw him on his birthday, 
" there is much to suggest his years, it is 
true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. 
He is erect for a man of eighty-four; his 
early litheness has not degenerated into the 
hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and un- 
cared-for old age ; his step does not drag 
after his body as if unwilling to carry the 
burden longer; his head Is not lowered, 
awaitino; the smite of Time." 

Another thus describes Whittier in 1891 : 
" In personal appearance he is remarkable. 
Tall, and as straight as one of the young 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 32 I 

pines in his favorite grove, it seems impos- 
sible that he is at the end of fourscore years. 
The crown of his head is bald, and his hair 
is glossy silver ; but his great black eyes are 
as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in 
the prime of life. He walks with the delib- 
eration and dignity of age, but without a 
suggestion of physical feebleness, and while 
he remains standing his head is as finely 
poised as a soldier's. The straightness of 
his figure is the more noticeable on account 
of his Quaker dress, the coat of which fits 
him as neatly and closely as if it were the 
conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated 
and listening, his head drops slightly forward 
and aside — a pose which seems peculiar to 
poetic natures the world over. He is a most 
appreciative reader of other men's books and 
poems, and talks admirably of all good writ- 
ings except his own, of which he can scarcely 
be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest 
intimates." 

Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cart- 
land received the guests in the wide hall of 
the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home ; 
and the poet himself wandered here and 

there about the room, so said the Boston 
21 



32 2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Advertiser^ " greeting every guest informally 
and pleasantly, from the old and tried com- 
rades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the 
little girl in cream-white' dress and wide hat, 
his little friend Margaret Lothrop, who had 
to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head 
with her childish kiss ; and whose small hand 
he held closely as he kept her by his side." 

A pleasant note was received from Phillips 
Brooks : — 

" Dear Mr. Whittier : 

"•I have no rioht save that which love and 
gratitude and reverence may give, to say how 
devoutly I thank God that you have lived, 
that you are living, and that you will always 
live. May his peace be with you more and 
more. 

" Affectionately your friend, 

" Phillips Brooks." 

The first guests to arrive were a deputation 
of fifty from Haverhill, members of the 
Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made 
them a little speech, saying it was evident 
that sometimes a prophet was honored in 
his own country. 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 323 

The house was filled with cut flowers — 
in the window-seats, on the tables, in the 
poet's bedroom, up-stairs — all gifts from 
friends. The Whittier Club of Haverhill 
brought eighty-four roses. There was a 
basket of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. 
D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent, 
as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From 
Mr. E. C. Stedman came a painting " High 
Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D. 
Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a 
half-dozen pairs of socks — the spirit that 
prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as 
that of others. Other gifts were : an oil 
painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted 
by J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved 
by A. G. Smith; a ruler of various inlaid 
woods from California, the gift of pupils of 
the workshop at West Point, Calaveras 
County, who wrote a letter, saying that they 
would devote the birthday to reading and 
speaking selections from his works; a paper- 
cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, 
of Winchester, Penn., and sent by the ladies 
of that place; a hand-painted tray from artist 
Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late 
photograph of Dr. Holmes, " with his hat in 



324 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air ; " 
a souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from 
W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of Newburyport; a 
picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, 
done on native olive-wood, from Professor 
John Murray, of California ; a handsome 
footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Port- 
land, Me.; photogravures of scenes about 
the Whittier homestead in Haverhill ; a 
transparency ( " Snow-Bound ") from Austin 
P. Nichols ; eighty-four roses from the girls 
of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a 
wreath of evergrreens from Mrs. Annie 

o 

Fields. 

Amonp- the messao-es was one from a little 
Indian maiden whom Whittier had be- 
friended : " Your young Mohawk friend asks 
for you to-day the Great Spirit's blessing" — 
signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came 
from Abby Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson 
singers. 

Among those present were, Mrs. Alice 
Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett, " Mar- 
garet Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. 
William Claflin, Harriet McEwen Kimball, 
T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and 
others. 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 325 

Among the company, conspicuous by 
those natural gifts that make one a centre 
for intellectual and genial comradeship, was 
Mr. D. Lothrop — the eminent publisher — 
(since passed away, mourned by all) who 
probably has done more than any other man 
of present times to create a new literature 
for children and young people, all achieved 
when it cost to do it, and that consumed 
years of patient, persistent struggling, till his 
splendid success was won. 

Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, " Thy 
husband and Mr. Cofhn " (the old-time friend 
referred to), " were the life of my birthday 
reception, and now both are gone before me." 
(Mr. Cofhn died the week after the birthday.) 

Again, to quote one of the many extracts 
of Mr. Whittier's letters concerning Mr. 
Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy 
mourning, for I too have lost in him a friend." 

There was much to draw the two men to- 
gether ; both sprang from New England an- 
cestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native 
State ; each possessed the same indomitable 
will, where a question of right was involved, 
and the same breadth of charity for all, of 
whatsoever creed or divergence of opinion. 



326 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in 
the dining-room, nibbling a bit here and 
there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or' 
coffee. His eyes, every one noticed, flamed 
with old-time lustre, whenever he was in- 
terested. 

Letters of conoratulation were received 
from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia Thaxter, 
Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, 
Andrew P. Peabody, Rose Terry Cooke 
(who has since died), George W. Cable, T. 
W. Higginson, Charles Eliot Norton, and 
others. 

Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whit- 
tier's literary art he admired the broad and 
cheery humanities of the man. 

For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston 
Advertiser printed a superb illustrated Whit- 
tier number, as did also the Boston JoM7'nal. 
For the latter Dr. Holmes contributed the 
following letter: 

My Dear Whittier : — I congratulate you on having 
climbed another glacier and crossed another crevasse in your 
ascent of the white summit which already begins to see the 
morning twilight of the coming century. A life so well filled 
as yours has been cannot be too long for your fellowmen 
and women. In their affections you are secure, whether you 
are with them here or near them in some higher life than 



TWILIGHT AMD EVENING BELL. 



327 



theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so that 
you are tired of living. At our age we must Hve chiefly in 
the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look 
back upon. 

It is one of the felicitous incidents — I will not say acci- 
dents — of my life that the lapse of time has brought us very 
near together, so that I frequently find myself honored by 
seeing my name mentioned in near connection with your own. 
We are lonely, very lonely, in these last years. The image 
which I have used before this in writing to you recurs once 
more to my thought. We were on deck together as we be- 
gan the voyage of life two generations ago, A whole gener- 
ation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the cabin, 
with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which 
held us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on 
the raft pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft 
has at last parted, and you and I are left clinging to the soli- 
tary spar, which is all that still remains afloat of the sunken 
vessel. 

I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. 
Griswold's cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of 
America." In that venerable receptacle, just completing its 
half-century of existence — for the date of the edition before 
me IS 1842 — I find the names of John Greenleaf Whittier 
and Oliver Wendell Holmes next each other, in their due 
order, as they should be. All around are the names of the 
dead — too often of forgotten dead. Three v^hich I see there 
are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborn Sar- 
gent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours 
by scholarly translation ; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 
1830, and whose last work is dated 1886 ; and Christopher P. 
Cranch, whose poetical gift has too rarely found expression. 
Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered 
and beloved survivor ; of these few living the most honored 
representative. Long may it be before you leave a world 
where your influence has been so beneficent, where your 



328 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

example has been such inspiration, where you are so truly 
loved, and where your presence is a perpetual benediction. 
Always affectionately yours, 

^/l^^Z^^ ^^^^U^U'^^ ^h:c^'P».^n. 

Followino[ is one of two stanzas sent to 
the Poet of Freedom by his friend " Margaret 
Sidney," and which, says the Advertiser, with 
one other tribute, was the only one of the 
innumerable letters and poems sent him that 
he read in its entirety that day, owing to his 
failing eyesight : 

" To be near the heart of Christ 

Was his creed ; 
White as truth the life 

That all men may read ; 
Strengthful of soul. 

Yet lowly in meekness ; 
Dreading no hate of men, 

Scorning all weakness. 
He sounded the warning note, 

When it cost to be brave and true ; 
Sang freedom for the slave, 

Then almost death to do. 
' Unbind every shackle, 
Loosen each chain, 
Bid every slave go free ! ' " 

Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting 
autobiographical reminiscences for the Ad- 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING- BELL. 



329 



vertiser. He stated : " I can scarcely remem- 
ber when I did not read Whittier and Holmes. 
Their verses were eagerly caught up and re- 
printed by all the newspapers, and I knew 
them by heart before I ever saw a volume of 
them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my 
neighbor, living only eight miles away 
across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming 
for silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward 
Gove speak in the Quaker meeting-house at 
Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of 
my ancestors. But I did not know this 
then ; I never went there to see him. He 
is a distant cousin of mine, both of us trac- 
ing descent, through his daughters, from 
that stout and ungovernable old Puritan 
minister, Stephen Bachiler, who planted the 
old town of Hampton, in whose wide limits 
I was born, and which extended almost to 
Amesbury." 

Another scholarly writer in the same paper 
wrote instructively of Whittier in the Massa- 
chusetts Leo^islature. The Legislature of 
1835 he describes as a notable one in the 
quality of its members and in the work 
accomplished. An extra session was held 
in the autumn. The Speaker of the House 



330 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 

was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, 
with whom Whittler had already formed a 
personal acquaintance through Judge Rock- 
well's contributions to the New England 
Review. Among the Suffolk County rep- 
resentatives were such names as Froth ing- 
ham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis, Peabody, and 
Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. 
Fay, the first mayor of Chelsea. It is not 
remembered that Whittier made any set 
speech, but he nevertheless did so much and 
such arduous work as to make himself ill 
before the session was half over. Dr. Bow- 
ditch, he often recalled with amusement, told 
him that, if he followed implicitly the rules 
he laid down for him, he might live to see 
his fiftieth birthday ; otherwise, not. 

Perhaps no one man has been more fre- 
quently interviewed concerning the policy 
of party politics than John G. Whittier. 
With gifted qualities of heart and mind, was 
added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all 
that related to governmental affairs. The 
late Henry Wilson once said of him, " I can 
rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier 
than upon any other man in America." 

In the early movements of the Republi- 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 33 T 

can party he was acknowledged to be the 
power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and 
learned, could trust to the advice of Whittier. 
His correspondence with such men as Gid- 
dings. Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, 
Upham and other celebrities, upon national 
topics, is known to a few of his friends. 
They contain sentiments which prove him 
as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in 
verse. 

How well and faithfully he labored is best 
expressed in his words : 

*' I am not insensible to literary reputation ; 
I love, perhaps too well, the love and praise 
of my fellowmen ; but I set a higher value 
on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery 
Declaration of 1833, than on the title page 
of any book." 

On the subject of the abolishment of cap- 
ital punishment, Whittier's vote is found 
recorded in the affirmative, as might have 
been expected. He has said that one of the 
pleasantest years of his life was that passed 
during the session of the Legislature in 1835. 

One of the chief reasons why Whittier 
went seven miles from his Amesbury home 
last summer was to " escape pilgrims " (as he 



232 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

called them). One Sunday after meeting at 
Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, 
Miss Gove, " Abby, has thee a spare room 
up at thy house ? " She responded in the 
affirmative, and he went to her home in 
Hampton Falls for the latter part of the 
summer. It was here he penned his last 
poem — the verses " To Oliver Wendell 
Holmes : " 



" The gift is thine the weary world to make 
More cheerful for thy sake, 
Soothing the ears its Miserere pains 
With the old Hellenic strains." 



In a letter to one of the editors of the 
Critic (August 29, 1892), Dr. Holmes wrote, 
concerning his birthday : 

" I have received two poems in advance, 
and our dear friend Whittier, whose heart is 
a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow^-crea- 
tures, has remembered me in the pages of 
the Atlantic, where we have found ourselves 
side by side for so many years. Long may 
the sands of his life keep running, for they 
come from the bed of Pactolus." 

The news of his friend's death was re- 
ceived by Dr. Holmes in Beverly, just as he 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 333 

was coming in from a drive along the shore. 
It was a heavy blow, coming as it did just 
upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons, 
and George William Curtis. He remarked 
that his acquaintance with Whittier dated 
from the year of the founding of the Atlantic 
Monthly. He had frequently visited him at 
Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and the 
two old fellows walked and talked amono- the 
trees and had a good time together. When 
the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him 
down with fruit. It was on one of these re- 
cent visits that Dr. Holmes with character- 
istic keenness of perception, discovered the 
beautiful symmetry of the grand Norway 
spruce in front of the mansion on the wide 
sweep of lawn, and he laughingly named it 
"The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it has 
kept ever since. 

To return to " Elm field," as the old Gove 
mansion is called. The old-fashioned house, 
with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, 
and rich collection of historical relics, stands 
on a hill not far from the falls which gave the 
name to the village — Hampton Falls. The 
sight from Whittier's window commanded a 
little balcony, with a view of the distant blue 



334 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

sea. One day after another passed quietly 
away, he rising at seven, going across through 
a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his 
breakfast, getting the mail at the little post- 
office, reading the papers, looking at the 
distant sails on the sea through a glass, con- 
versing with friends or walking in the neigh- 
boring orchard, with its paths and rustic 
seats. The region is that where his Bachiler 
and Hussey ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. 
Sanborn tells us (Boston Advertiser, Septem- 
ber 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler an- 
cestors also lived on a farm, a mile and a half 
from the Gove mansion; namely, where now 
stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. 
Sanborn truthfully says, Whittier has been 
the local poet of this whole region of Essex 
and adjoining counties. " No poet of New 
England," he continues, " has lived so close 
to the actual habits of the people, in the 
present and the past centuries, as did Whit- 
tier ; and his poems of locality will become 
as much a feature of New England liter- 
ature as are those of Burns and Scott in 
their native country. This fidelity to homely 
fact and profound sentiment have made 
Whittier more than any other the patrial 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 335 

and religious poet of New Hampshire and 
Eastern Massachusetts. He has done in 
verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was 
only the accident or accomplishment of verse 
which separated these two poets, and made 
one of them our most o-raceful and romantic 
prose-writer, while the other became our 
most spiritual and literal poet." 

The truth of these statements comes home 
to me with force since I made a week's itin- 
erary through this Whittier ballad land a year 
ago, and saw how every mile of coast land 
was celebrated in storied verse by Whittier. 

On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier 
was taken ill. The malady was acute diar- 
rhea, which by the Saturday following de- 
veloped a new and alarming symptom, a 
remarkable irregularity of the heart's action, 
accompanied by partial paralysis of the left 
side, arms, and vocal organs. He remained 
conscious until Tuesday at three p. m., when 
the symptoms became markedly worse. He 
was surrounded by ministering relatives and 
friends, who gave him every loving atten- 
tion, but all were powerless to stay the hand 
of death. 

When urged to take the nourishment pre- 



336 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

scribed by his physicians, he said : " I want 
water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," 
and as it was given, remarked with a bright 
smile, " That's good — nothing better." Soon 
after, as his forehead was being bathed, he 
said, " That is all that can be done." To 
his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and 
Howe, and nurse, he said : " I am worn out 
— thee have done what thee could — I thank 
thee." And as the end drew near the dying 
poet recognized his niece from Portland, and 
remarked in faltering words, " Love — to — 
the — world." These were his last words. 
He died at four-thirty on the morning of the 
seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday eve- 
ning the silent form of the poet was brought 
to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. 
S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland. 

On Saturday morning business was en- 
tirely suspended in Amesbury. The select- 
men issued the following proclamation : — 

" To the Citizens of Amesbury : — Our town has been sad- 
dened by the death of its great poet and one of its noblest 
and best-loved citizens. We feel that our country at large, 
and the civilized world,, mourns with us the death of the 
poet and liberty-loving philanthropist, John G. Whittier. 

" Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and 
good everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 339 

of a friend and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable quali- 
ties and the purity of his daily life in our midst. 

"We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for 
himself. Always identified with every good work in Ames- 
bury, sustaining the right and defending the oppressed, his 
life for more than half a century has been to us a daily 
sermon. 

" If it be true that 

' The heart speaketh most when the life move,' 

we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and 
its crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community." 

At ten o'clock the public was admitted to 
the house, passing in a continuous line (as 
at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, 
his brother poet of Democracy, a few months 
before in Camden) through the humble little 
parlor of the Amesbury home. It was orig- 
inally intended to hold the services in the 
Friends' meeting-house near by; but the 
dense fog clearing up and the bright sun 
coming out — as one beautifully said, " the 
mystery of death typified by the shifting and 
elusive shadows of the fog, and the glory 
and hopefulness of the resurrection by the 
bright rays of the sun" — it w^as decided to 
let the body rest in the house, and hold 
memorial services in the quiet garden in the 



340 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

rear of the house. The funeral arrange- 
ments were in charge of William Lloyd 
Garrison, Jr., S. T. Pickard and Judge G. 
W. Gate, the tenant of the house. The 
atmosphere was one of peace and restful- 
ness, and the simplicity of the life of the 
Friends was seen in all the arrangements. 
In the quaint parlor of the homestead lay 
all that was mortal of the poet, on whose face 
was an expression of supreme peace ; his form 
was encircled by a delicate fringe of trailing 
fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes — eighty-four white 
roses, fringed with carnations and maidenhair 
ferns, one for each year of the poet's life, 
— was laid around the name-plate on the 
coffin. It was a touching tribute by the last 
one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that 
marked such a distinguished era in our 
American literature. Two crossed palms, 
with the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, 
encircled by a broad white satin ribbon, were 
from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of 
the long palms encircled the face of the dead 
poet as it looked out from the large engraving 
between the windows of the parlor. Upon 
the end of the ribbon was delicately painted 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



341 



six lines from Whittier's " Andrew Rykman's 
Prayer:" 

" Some sweet morning yet in God's 
Dim asonian periods. 
Joyful I shall wake to see 
Those I love who rest in Thee, 
And to them in Thee allied 
Shall my soul be satisfied.'' 

Upon the accompanying card was this: 
" In memory of my husband's dear friend. 
This verse of ' Andrew Rykman's Prayer ' 
was consolation in the hour of death to both 
him who wrote it, and to him who loved it. 
— Mrs. Daniel Lothrop." 

Another exquisite floral offering came 
with these lines : 

" I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care." 

On the back of the card were the words 
" Oak Knoll." 

The alcove behind the casket was filled 
with floral tributes. Here was a lars^e St. 
Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses 



342 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

upon a bed of ivy, from a very near and 
dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, 
whose name is withheld. There was a 
ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations 
and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of 
Amesbury, an ivy wreath from Sarah Orne 
Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie 
Cheney and the Misses CofiBn of Lynn, a 
broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. 
and Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A 
massive wreath of Whittier's own much- 
loved pine tassels was hung above the por- 
trait of his sister Elizabeth, the tribute of 
Mrs. Joseph A. Purington ; the heavy green 
was relieved by a spray of bright, contrast- 
ing goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel Rowell, Jr., 
sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. 
There was a beautiful spray of the passion 
flower from L. Keleher, Hotel Winthrop, 
Boston, and an hour-glass of white car- 
nations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many touch- 
ing little clusters of flowers came from the 
children ; and his neighbors sent a beauti- 
ful wreath of fringed gentian — Whittier's 
favorite flower. This came from the far 
Pacific Slope : " Lay one flower for me 
upon the bier of the beloved friend who 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 343 

rests. No purer soul ever passed from earth 
to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and 
blessing than does his.— Ina D. Coolbrith, 

Oakland, Cal." 

In the garden, and overlooked by the win- 
dows of the study where Mr. Whittier wrote 
and thought for so many years, was gathered 
to pay the last tributes of love and reverence 
to the dead poet, a large and notable assem- 
blage : Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, 
■ Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy 
Larcom, Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. 
Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor 
Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Under- 
wood, Edward L. Pierce, Robert S. Rantoul, 
Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Har- 
riet Prescott Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. 
Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison, etc 

And the sight was one never to be forgot- 
ten. Under the soft September sky, blue 
and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple 
trees which Whittier himself had planted 
and tended and loved, were his relatives, 
friends, neighbors and men and women 
whose names are known wherever the Eng- 
lish language is spoken. 



344 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so un- 
affectedly natural and sincere was every 
spoken word and every act. And the entire 
absence of formality and stiffness deprived 
the occasion of that artificial gloom which is 
so often characteristic of funerals. 

Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the 
balmy air and the beauties of the place 
helped to lift the pall that must have hung 
over many a heart. It was as if the friends 
of some dearly beloved man, who was going 
on a journey, had gathered to bid him God- 
speed — not as if they had come to bid him 
farewell. 

A hollow square was formed around a low 
platform, and near by was a table with a 
Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's 
favorite flowers, and goldenrod formed the 
only floral ornaments. Back of the seats 
stood a dense crowd that must have num- 
bered thousands, almost filling the garden. 
Children climbed the trees and looked with 
open-eyed wonder on the scene. On an 
apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the 
air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence 
Stedman, was an urchin who might have in- 
spired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 345 

from many a tree, from the vine-clad arbor 
and from the window of a neighboring barn, 
down upon the crowd. 

The poet's relatives, and members of the 
Society of F^riends from various places, occu- 
pied the seats forming the hollow square, an 
easy-chair being reserved for Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, but he was unable to be present. 

The Friends gave the exercises their 
peculiar complexion ; first one and then 
another rising to eulogize their friend as the 
" Spirit moved them." Verses of Whittier 
were recited by " that lovely Quaker lady," 
Mrs. Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James 
H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the last 
speaker. 

He spoke of the personal loss he felt 
in the poet's death. " To know him was a 
consecration, to have his sympathy a bene- 
diction. His passing away was not so much 
a death as a translation. He is gone, and 
has not left his mantle ! How could he ? 
Why should he? No one can overestimate 
his artless art, his power, vigor and effect 
in his polemic efforts. No one put so much 
heart or so much religion into his writings. 
He was one of the great trio of New Eng- 



346 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

land poets, of whom there is only one now 
left. They are the vanishers of whom he 
spoke. He was a believer in the inward 
life, as a poet should be. He will be his 
own successor, and belongs to our time as 
well as to that earlier time to which he is 
linked by his work. We may say of him 
that the chariot swung low and he was trans- 
lated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, 
and religion with his mantle. The last time 
I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard 
Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's 
friend, and like Whittier he had a firm 
belief in immortality." 

It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedi- 
cated in a few choice lines his latest volume 
of verse, " At Sundown," which the poet, 
as if prescient of his coming death, had 
had privately printed and circulated among 
a few friends a year before his fatal illness. 

The most picturesque and striking figure 
at Whittier's funeral was that of the vener- 
able John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray 
hair fell over a broad white Rembrandt 
collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchin- 
son Patton, were life-long friends of Whit- 
tier, and their voices in the song they sang — 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 347 

"Close his eyes, his work is done" — were, 
"like the echoes of sweet bells from the far- 
away time of their youth, when they and 
Whittier were one in endeavor." 

And then the long procession was formed. 
In the family lot, in the Friends' section of 
the Union Cemetery, where are buried his 
father, mother, sisters and brother, John 
Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest. 

The Boston Journal in writing of Whit- 
tier's obsequies, gathered up this tender 
reminiscence : — 

"We recall the incident of some ten 
years since, when Mr. Daniel Lothrop, the 
late publisher, while visiting in California, 
used Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's 
Prayer ' to comfort the bereaved. Mr. 
Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up 
on Mr. Whittier's poems, there being in 
many ways a great similarity of tastes and 
characteristics between them. Of late years 
there was a strong friendship. The clergy- 
man of a prominent Oakland church had 
died suddenly in the pulpit some few weeks 
before, and at the large memorial meeting 
Mr. Lothrop was asked without warning by 
the chairman to recite this poem, as he had 



348 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

heard him repeat a few lines from it dur- 
ing a consecration meeting. Mr. Lothrop 
ascended the platform and gave the poem 
entire. There was a profound hush through- 
out the vast assembly, like that following 
the instant when the beloved pastor had 
suddenly fallen before their eyes. Many 
were in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's 
strong, uplifting words comforted them 
more than anything else that had been said. 
Rev. Dr. Gordon, in the address at Mr. 
Lothrop's funeral in the Old South Church, 
appropriately recited this poem for the late 
publisher, who on his death-bed used this 
poem, as he had in health and strength." 

James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had 
" long regarded Whittier with affectionate 
veneration," and over the wire came from 
Frederick Douglas the words, " Emanci- 
pated millions will hold his memory sacred." 
Speaking of Mr. Blaine, a writer, " S. F. M.," 
in the Boston Journal, December 18, 1891, 
tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, '.' S. F. 
M.'s," brother with a morocco-bound copy of 
the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr. 
Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one 
Sunday at their house in Charlestown, Mass., 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



349 



the poem " Among the Hills," which had 
then just been issued. 

Memorial services on the afternoon of the 
funeral were held in Danvers, Haverhill, 
Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The 
old Whittier grange at the cross roads in 
Haverhill was draped in mourning. The 
present owner of the birthplace is Mr. 
George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy gentle- 
man of Haverhill ; and it is hoped that at 
no distant day he may be induced to sell it 
to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly 
keep this cherished spot marking the nativ- 
ity of her distinguished son, so that all 
lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may 
have an opportunity to see his early home. 

The day after the funeral between seven- 
teen and eighteen hundred people visited the 
grave. Arid, as in the case of Walt Whit- 
man's grave, each one wanted a leaf or 
flower as a memento, so that it was neces- 
sary in both cases, to have the place of 
sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in 
order that anything green be left. 

The funeral of the poet was conducted as 
he himself wished. For in his will he wrote, 
'' It is my wish that my funeral may be con- 



35 O JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ducted in the plain and quiet way of the 
Society of Friends, with which I am con- 
nected not only by birthright, but also by a 
settled conviction of the truth of its principles 
and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. 
Whittier, by the way, in his will requests all 
who have letters of his to refrain from pub- 
lishing them unless with the consent of his 
literary executor, Mr. S. T. Pickard. 

So beautifully ended a most beautiful life 
— beautiful because just and heroic in the 
defense of justice. As says of him James 
Herbert Morse : — 

" Such was the man — no more than simple man, 
Plain Quaker, with the Norman-Saxon glow ; 

But seeing beauty so, and justice so, 
We love to think him the American." 

And as Lowell says : — 

" Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, 
The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold 

Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake 
That lay in bonds thou blew'st a blast as bold 

As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, 
Far heard through Pyrenean valleys cold ! " 

The lines strong and resonant, of Sted- 
man's " Ad Vatem," addressed to Whittier 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 35 I 

while living, might well have been uttered 
over his bier : — 

« Whittier, the land that loves thee, she whose child 
Thou art, and whose upUfted hands thou long 
Hast staid with song availing hke a prayer — 
She feels a sudden pang who gave thee birth. 
And gave to thee the lineaments supreme 
Of her own freedom, that she could not make 
Thy tissues all immortal, or, if to change, 
To bloom through years coeval with her own ; 
So that no touch of age nor frost of tune 
Should wither thee, nor furrow thy dear face, 
Nor fleck thy hair with silver. Ay, she feels 
A double pang that thee, with each new year 
Glad youth may not revisit, like the spring 
That routs her northern winter and anew 
Melts off the hoar snow from her puissant hills." 

Many pleasant anecdotes of the Quaker 
poet appeared shortly after his death. Col. 
T. W. Higginson, writing of the Amesbury 
home, said of Whittier's mother: — 

" On one point only this blameless soul 
seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this 
being the new wonder of Spiritualism just 
dawning on the world. I never went to the 
house that there did not come from the gen- 
tle lady very soon a placid inquiry from be- 
hind her knitting needles, ' Has thee any 
further information to give in regard to the 



352 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

spiritual communications, as they call them ? * 
But if I attempted to treat seriously a matter 
which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers 
by its perplexing details, there would come 
some keen thrust from Elizabeth Whittier 
which would throw all serious solution 
further off than ever. 

" vShe was indeed a brilliant person, unsur- 
passed in my memory for the light cavalry 
charges of wit; as unlike her mother and 
brother as if she had been born into a dif- 
ferent race. Instead of his regular features, 
she had a wild, bird-like look, with promi- 
nent nose and large liquid dark eyes, whose 
expression vibrated every instant between 
melting softness and impetuous wit. There 
was nothing about her that was not sweet 
and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to 
keep up with her sallies and hold your own ; 
while her graver brother listened with de- 
lighted admiration and rubbed his hands 
over bits of merry sarcasm which were 
utterly alien to his own vein. His manifold 
visitors were touched off in living colors ; two 
plump and rosy Western girls among them, 
who had lately descended upon the house- 
hold beaming with eagerness to see the poet. 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 353 

" They had announced themselves as the 
Gary sisters, who had lately sent him their 
joint poems — verses, it will be remembered, 
crowded with deaths and melodious dirges 
that seemed ludicrously inconsistent with 
the blooming faces at the door. Mrs. Whit- 
tier met them rather guardedly and explained 
that her son was out. ' But we will come in 
and wait for him,' they smilingly replied. 
' But he is in Boston, and may not be home 
for a week,' said the prudent mother. ' No 
matter,' they said, in the true spirit of West- 
ern hospitality ; ' we can stay till he returns.' 
There was no resource but to admit them ; 
and happily the poet came back next day, 
and there ensued a life-long friendship, in 
which the mother fully shared." 

And another reminiscence appeared in 
the press, touching the poet's residence in 
Boston. 

" When Mrs. Celia Thaxter was boarding 
at the little English-like inn on the sunny 
slope of Beacon Hill called Hotel Winthrop, 
Mr. Whittier went there one day to see her. 
Mrs. Thaxter liked the quiet place, with its 
ivied window and its glimpse of the strong, 
short, green-draped tower of St. John the 

23 



354 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Evangelist's, and she praised it to her old 
friend. That was some time in 1881, and in 
November of that year he joined his Oak 
Knoll cousins, Mrs. Woodman and her 
daughter and the Misses Johnson, at the 
Winthrop. The ladies of the family came 
in September, but Mr. Whittier did not join 
them until November. He said that he did 
not want to lose his vote in Amesbury. 

It was a winter full of pleasure to the 
poet. He was then not too feeble to go out 
evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours 
with friends like the Claflins and others. 
But the hours in the parlor of the hotel 
make the place historic, and give it a special 
interest and meaning for his future biog- 
rapher. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen 
(the number of a sonnet's lines, twice seven, 
with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape 
made a little balcony for him on a corner 
toward St. John's. The landlord had a door 
cut through the thick old wall to the rooms 
adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. 
Woodman and the rest. It is old Boston 
decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the 
houses is mellow old red, and there is noth- 
ing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whit- 



TWILIGHT AND EVENIi^G BELL. 355 

tier said he preferred coming here rather 
than to one of the big hotels, because there 
he was " overwhehned with the service," and 
here it seemed " more Hke Amesbury," 
where people "are neighborly and drop in 
without knocking." He had "always been 
used to waiting upon himself," and he " liked 
being in a place where they would let him." 
It was his custom, mornings, to come down 
into the little reception-room on the street 
floor, and " sitting right in that chair where 
you're sitting," as the writer was told, he 
" used to read his letters and throw all the 
papers in a pile on the floor and go off and 
leave them." That little room was a great 
place of congregation for " the family," as the 
boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier 
liked to call themselves. 

The poet would sit on the sofa with a 
favored one on each side of him and the rest 
in a group about, " often on footstools or on 
the floor, as like as not," while he "told 
stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was 
there during one of the poet's long stays ; he 
had been a classmate of Gen. Lee and of 
Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and 
the. abolition poet discussed these men and 



356 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

their times from the broader view of later 
days. 

" Once a friend, a lady who had some 
property in Virginia, wrote Mr. Whittier of 
having named a street in a new town for 
him, and of having set aside a portion of 
ground in his name. He replied with thanks, 
saying that he had that week received news 
of no less than three towns or streets being- 
named for him with a gift of town lots, ad- 
dino- ' If this sort of thins; 2:oes on much 
longer, I shall be land poor.' 

" During^ the winters he was at the Win- 
throp, Mr. Whittier's favorite way of getting 
about was in a herdic. They were ' not 
pretty,' but they ' knew the way to places.' 
Politicans used to go there to see him and 
try to get him to banquets. But his life-long 
avoidance of politics in the minor sense 
made him easily resist their wiles. ' I have 

seen Mr. (a well-known name) come here 

and just about go down on his knees to get 
Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a 
banquet,' says the landlord (who is, by the 
way, an old-time character worthy of a novel- 
ist's pen), ' but Mr. Whittier would just sit 
here — right in that chair you're in — and 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



357 



kind of smile to himself as if to say, " Oh ! 
your talk don't amount to anything." Well, 

once Mr. came here and staid and 

staid a-talking and persuading, and gave 
Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man had 
one. But he didn't make anything by it, 
although he finally had to take a bed and 
stay all night.' " 

Mr. Charles Brain ard visited Whittier 
soon after the publication of " Snow-Bound." 
Finding his house painted and improved, he 
remarked to him, " It is evident that poetry 
has ceased to be a drug in the market." 

" The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer 
came. It was in the winter, and, as the poet 
went up to the fire to warm his boots pre- 
paratory to putting them on, he said, ' Thee 
will have to excuse me, for I must go down 
to the office of the Collector.' Then, with 
a humorous gleam in his eye, he added, 
' Since " Snow-Bound " was published, I have 
risen to the dignity of an income tax.' " 

To an Englishman who visited him not 
long before his death, Mr. Whittier expressed 
his surprise that his guest should know so 
much of his poetry by heart. " I wonder," 
he said, " thou shouldst burden thy memory 



2^8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

with all that rhyme. It is not well to have 
too much of it: better get rid of it as soon 
as possible. Why, I can't remember any of 
it. I once went to hear a wonderful orator, 
and he wound up his speech with a poetical 
quotation, and I clapped with all my might. 
Some one touched me on the shoulder, and 
said. ' Do you know who wrote that ? ' I 
said, ' No, I don't; but it's good.' It seems 
IJiad written it myself. The fault is I have 
written far too much." 

Here is a story illustrating Whittier's 
kind-heartedness : A young lady, a neigh- 
bor, was asked to take tea at his house. 
" He had no servant at the moment, and, 
with the assistance of his guest, prepared the 
simple meal with his own hand. She con- 
tributed to the press for her support, and 
prepared a minute account of the affair, of 
which Mr. Whittier chanced to" be advised, 
and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But 
when the young author pleaded the real need 
of the money which the little story was to 
bring her, and the harmlessness to its sub- 
ject of its effective details, the former reason 
(for the latter would never have overcome 
his abhorrence of what he must have felt a 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 359 

vivisection) actually prevailed, and he per- 
mitted the publication with a benignant 
forbearance." 

The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes 
in the Essex Institute Collections for 1880. 

" James F. Otis, nephew of the Hon. H. 
G. Otis, while reading law in my office, 
found in some newspaper a piece of poetry 
which he said he was told had been written 
by a shoemaker boy in Haverhill, and he 
wished to go and find him. Upon his return 
he told me he found the young man by the 
name of Whittier at work in his shoe shop, 
and, making ' himself known to him, they 
spent the day together in w^andering over 
the hills on the shore of the Merrimack, and 
in conversation upon literary matters. The 
next year he became an editor. Mr. Whit- 
tier is not only a poet, but is himself a poem." 

Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time 
ago as to his favorite works, replied : " Oh ! 
really, I have none. Much that I have 
written I wish was as deep in the Red Sea 
as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the 
bread cast on the waters I wish had never 
returned. It is not fair to revive writings 
composed in the shadow of conditions that 



360 JOHN GREELNEAF WHITTIER. 

make every acceptable work impossible. In 
my early life I was not favored with good 
opportunities. Limited chances for educa- 
tion and a lack of books always stood in my 
way. When I began to write I had seen 
nothing, and virtually knew nothing of the 
world. Of course, things written then could 
not be worth much. In my father's house 
there were not a dozen books, and they 
were of a severe type. The only one that 
approached poetry was a rhymed history of 
King David, written by a contemporary of 
George Fox, the Quaker. There was one 
poor novel in the family. It belonged to an 
aunt. This I secured one day, but when I 
had read it about half through I was dis- 
covered and it was taken away from me." 

This was about the time when Judge 
Pickering, of Salem, and a party of ladies 
called at the farmhouse to see him. " He 
was then an awkward boy of seventeen — as 
he used to tell the story — and was just then 
under the barn, looking for eggs. Hearing 
his name called, he came up with his hat 
full and found himself suddenly in the pres- 
ence of people more elegant in appearance 
than any he had ever met, In telling the 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 361 

story, he added naively, ' They came to see 
the Quaker poet — and they saw him ! ' 
This must have been about the year 1824." 
Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston Journal, 
Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition), the journalist, 
wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whit- 
tier, in a little editorial den at the junction of 
Spring Lane and Water Street with Devon- 
shire Street (the building recently torn down), 
where Henry Wilson was then editing the 
Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). " I 
was busy," says Mr. Ball, " getting up some 
local items one morning, when a gentleman 
of staid appearance, with a beaming counte- 
nance, a broad-brimmed fur hat — the old- 
fashioned fur hat, so different from the silk 
tile — and a brownish coat of formal cut, en- 
tered the room, and, after the usual cour- 
tesies of salutation, fell into a close chat 
with the ' Natick cobbler,' by which popular 
title the future Vice-President was then 
known. It was the summer season, and 
Wilson was resplendent in a brown linen 
coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waist- 
coat, which was much affected in those days. 
As the conversation between the two waxed 



362 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbut- 
toned his vest for comfort, and possessed 
himself of an exchange paper which he con- 
verted into a fan. The interview closed, and 
the visitor, buttoning up his vest and don- 
ning his hat, turned to depart, when for the 
first time he appeared to take notice of my 
presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, 
he said, ' Henry, who is thy young friend ? ' 

" ' Oh, that's William, my local reporter,' 
was the reply. ' Here, William, this is Mr. 
Whittier, the Quaker poet, that you have 
heard about ; shake hands with him.' I tim- 
idly extended my hand, and the great man 
not only grasped it with a cordial grasp, but, 
patting me on the head with his other hand, 
said, ' My young friend, thee has chosen a 
noble callino;.' " 

Mr. Whittier, in speaking of Longfellow's 
works a few years ago, said, " ' Evangeline ' is 
a favorite with me. I think it is one of the 
most beautiful of poems. Longfellow had 
an easy life and superior advantages of asso- 
ciation and education, and so did Emerson. 
It was widely different with -me, and I am 
very thankful for the kind esteem that people 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



363 



have given my writings. Before ' Evp.nge- 
line ' was written I had hunted up the history 
of the banishment of the Acadians, and had 
intended to write upon it myself, but I put it 
off, and Hawthorne got hold of the story and 
gave it to Longfellow. I am very glad he 
did, for he was just the one to write it. If I 
had attempted it I should have spoiled the 
artistic effect of the poem by my indignation 
at the treatment of the exiles by the Colonial 
Government, who had a very hard lot after 
coming to this country. Families were sep- 
arated and scattered about, only a few of 
them being permitted to remain in any 
given locality. The children were bound 
out to the families in the localities in which 
they resided, and I wrote a poem upon find- 
ing in the records of Haverhill the indenture 
that bound an Acadian girl as a servant in 
one of the families in that neiohborhood. 
Gathering the story of her death, I wrote 
' Marguerite.' " 

In addition to what has been stated in 
this volume and elsewhere by me on the 
Barbara Frietchie ballad, are to be finally 
appended a few words, suggested by the one 
who sent the raw material of the ballad to 



364 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Whittler, namely, Mrs. E. D. E. N. South- 
worth, who, soon after the poet's death, at 
her pretty home in Georgetown, D. C, 
recalled the circumstances as they occurred 
back in 1863. It seems that the story was 
told her by a neighbor of hers who was also 
a relative of Barbara — Mr. C. S. Rams- 
bure. Mrs. Southworth's son, who was 
present, remarked, " What a grand subject 
for a poem by Whittier, mother! " 

She thereupon sat down, and with tears 
in her eyes, wrote the incident out and sent 
it to Amesbury. Mr. Whittier replied as 
follows : — 

" Amesbury, gmo. 8, 1863. 

" My Dear Mrs. Southworth:— I heartily 
thank thee for thy very kind letter and its 
inclosed " message." It ought to have 
fallen into better hands, but I have just 
written out a little ballad of " Barbara Frie- 
tchie," which will appear in the next Atlantic, 
If it is good for anything thee deserves all 
the credit of it. 

" With best wishes for thy health and hap^ 
piness, I am most truly thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier." 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 365 

It is said that Mr. Whittier expressed re- 
gret for having made a bonfire of nearly all 
the letters he had received from his corres- 
pondents for over half a century. It is to 
be hoped that his literary executor will be 
liberal-minded in allowing the publication of 
the most interesting of Whittier's own letters, 
for he put a good bit of his sister Elizabeth's 
wit and vivacity into his letters ; and scarcely 
a day passed that one or more of these was 
not written, overflowing with kindly words 
and good humor, though these, it is true, 
could give no hint of that lambent gleam of 
the marvelous eyes, nor of that sudden com- 
pression of the upper lip with which he 
repressed a smile when he had flashed out a 
bit of humor. 

Whittier was not only quick in repartee, 
but quick and lithe in all his movements, 
and quick in his mental processes. His 
friend, Judge G. W. Gate, says he latterly 
read books very rapidly by inspection, 
turning the leaves and seizing the con- 
tents by intuition. The poet's imagina- 
tion, continues Judge Gate, was wonderful. 
Years ago he may have read an accurate 
description of some remote place' — Malta, 



366 JOHN GREEN-LEAF WHITTIER. 

Jerusalem, or some smaller town in the far 
East. He would then converse at any time 
as readily about such a place as if he had 
been there. It was this vivid remembrance 
of places, Whittier himself said, which made 
him not care so much to visit them in per- 
son. He was never a traveler, not having 
been farther from home than Philadelphia 
(half a century ago), and Washington some- 
what later. He said that he should like to 
be in California or Florida for a winter, but 
the getting there appalled him, and so he 
sat contentedly in his Northern study, with 
its bright open fire, finding in its crumbling 
embers a compensatory dream of the Mor- 
genland with its palms, mirages and luxuriant 
blossomry. He followed with deep interest 
the toils and adventures of his friend Greely 
in the arctic regions, and rejoiced with all 
his neio^hbors when word came of his rescue. 
And at another time he said he " would 
rather shake hands with Stanley than with 
any other man in the world just then," 

The sincerest mourners at Whittier's 
funeral were women. One of the peculiari- 
ties of his life was the devotion and loving 
care given to him by noble women — sisters, 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



Z^l 



mother, nieces, cousins and such poet friends 
as Lucy Larcom, Mrs. Spofford, Rose Terry 
Cooke, Sarah Orne Jevvett, Celia Thaxter, 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mrs. Annie 
Fields. He was always an ardent defender 
of woman suffrage, and such advocates of 
that noble cause as Adelaide A. Claflin 
publicly expressed their sorrow on the death 
of their coadjutor and friend. 

He was not only liberal in politics, but 
also in religion, and while remaining from 
choice in the creedless church of his fathers, 
yet he had sympathies that allied him with the 
broad humanitarian movements of the times 
in religion. There was no shred of bigotry 
in his nature. Who ever heard of a perse- 
cuting Quaker.^ It is they who have always 
patiently suffered persecution. Whittier, 
indeed, belonged with the advance guard of 
the Friends, in spirit at least, and he said in a 
letter written shortly before his death, " For 
years T have been desirous of a movement 
for uniting all Christians, with no other 
creed or pledge than a simple recognition of 
Christ as our leader." 



The Whittier Club of Haverhill, an organi- 



368 JOHN GREENLEAF IVHITTIER. 

zation the poet had thoroughly enjoyed, not 
only because it represented the feeling of 
his native town toward him, but also from 
the constant attentions paid him by it, held 
a memorial service in Haverhill,. October 7. 
It w^s a rare day of tribute and thanksgiv- 
ing, and all who participated in it felt grate- 
ful for the honor allowed them. It was just 
a month from the day when the loved poet 
and former citizen passed from earth. Mr. 
George E. Elliott, the owner of Whittier's 
birthplace, very generously allowed the club 
to hold its meeting in the old homestead, 
and he furthered in every way their well- 
conceived plan by which the several rooms 
presented an appearance as near as possible 
to that of the poet's boyhood. The parti- 
tion in the old kitchen, that had been put up 
of late years, was taken down, disclosing the 
array of ancient cupboards and queer little 
window ; there was the kettle hanging on the 
crane in the wide fireplace, along whose 
hearth one almost expected to see " the 
apples sputtering in a row," as of yore. 
There were the iron fire-dogs and the an- 
tiquated chairs, the wainscoting untouched 
by the hand of Time, save to grow mellower 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



309 



of tint, and there was "the sagging beam," 
the uneven floor and the quaint staircase, 
all just as Whittier, the boy, saw and touched 
and lived amongst, all those impressible years' 
of his life. 

It w^as a notable company gathered in 
that old homestead that beautiful October 
day — bidden there by the Whittier Club — 
not large in numbers, as the invitations were 
of necessity limited to the capacity of the 
old homestead. But they were mostly the 
poet's dear friends who came to do honor to 
his name. There was Lucy Larcom, Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Mrs. Ednah D. 
Cheney and "Margaret Sidney" (Mrs. D. 
Lothrop); there was Charles Carleton Coffin 
and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Garrison and Miss 
Sparhawk, whose father. Dr. Thomas Spar- 
hawk of Amesbury, was one of the poet's life- 
long friends. There was the dear Quaker 
presence of Mrs. Purington, Mr. Whittier's 
cousin, and the members of his family at 
Oak Knoll, Mrs. Woodman, her daughter. 
Miss Phebe, and the Misses Johnson; there 
was Mr. S. T. Pickard of Portland, Maine, 
who married the poet's niece Lizzie, and 
who is Mr. Whittier's literary executor. 



370 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

And there were other relatives and friends 
and Haverhill citizens thronging the house, 
and listening outside the little many-paned 
windows to catch the echoes of the words 
being uttered within. 

The day was all that one could desire 
who looked for sympathy in Nature toward 
this her favorite child who has so interpreted 
her woods and fields, her autumn skies and 
the trembling line of river and coast. The 
old kitchen was filled with chairs, and on 
them, and crowded in the doorways and peep- 
ing in the windows, were the interested and 
reverent listeners. Mr. Charles Howe, the 
president of the club, presided with great 
grace and dignity; with rare tact culling 
from the large amount of what waited to be 
read and said, just such choice extracts and 
bits of reminiscence as would best serve the 
purpose of the hour. Selections from " Snow- 
Bound " were read by a member of the club 
in that room where " Snow-Bound " was 
lived, if one may so express it. And to the 
listeners there came a vision of wintry fields 
and whirling storm ; of the little knot of 
friends drawn close to the friendly comfort- 
ing fire on the hearth ; in the midst the 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 



Zl 



thoughtful sensitive boy who was to awaken 
the love and veneration of future genera- 
tions all over his country. ' 

There were reminiscences of a visit to his 
birthplace paid by the poet some ten years 
since with Mr. S. T. Pickard, who told 
to the assembled company many amusing 
stories related by Mr. Whittier on that 
occasion. There was the quaint staircase 
down which the poet, when a baby, wrapped 
in a blanket, was rolled by his sister only 
two years older, who probably thought it 
the greatest kindness in the world to thus 
project her infant brother into space. There 
was the queer old cupboard where Mr. Whit- 
tier when a boy was dragged by his jacket 
collar by a tramp who had forcibly entered 
the house; and there he was compelled to 
stand while the unwelcome visitor searched 
high and low for any chance jug or bottle 
that would yield another supply to his 
already over-weighted condition. Seizing a 
jug from a dark corner, he ejected the cork 
without a glance at the contents, and took 
a long deep draught of whale oil used for 
filling lamps. The embryo poet took ad- 
vantage of the confused spluttering that 



372 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ensued, to make good his escape. Mr. Will 
Carleton recited with dramatic vigor " Bar- 
bara Frietchie," till the walls and rafters 
rang. Lucy Larcom read from the poet's 
writings, and Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. 
recited an original poem. A young Englisl'. 
lady, who was visiting friends of Mr. Whit-- 
tier's, read by request Tennyson's " Crossing 
the Bar," the Poet Laureate's death having 
just occurred. 

There were reminiscences by Dr. Fiske 
of Newburyport, who told several charac- 
teristic stories connected with Joshua Coffin, 
the " Yankee Schoolmaster," and life-long 
friend of the poet ; and Charles Carleton 
Coffin, the historian, gave the account of his 
capture of the big key of the last slave prison 
in Richmond, and of his giving it to Mr. Whit- 
tier who returned it to him a year or so ago. 
At the close of his remarks, Mr. Carleton 
hung the key on the nail above the fireplace 
where, in Whittier's boyhood, the big bull's- 
eye watch used to hang. Fitting place was 
it for the silent symbol of agony and shame 
to the slave brother ; and all who witnessed 
it hanging there, felt the heart beat to a 
newer and a keener sense of the debt we 



TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL. 373 

owe to him whose songs (as one who gave a 
reminiscence that day told us) influenced 
Abraham Lincoln to project the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation upon the American people. 
The beautiful poem of Mr. Whittier's, " My 
Psalm," was rendered with deep feeling by 
Mrs. Julia Houston West for whom, several 
years ago, the verses had been set to music. 
And to bring to a fitting close these memorial 
exercises, the assembled company of relatives 
and friends rose and sang one stanza of 
of " Auld Lang Syne." 






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